The Arts of Africa: Studying and Conserving the Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts by Richard B. Woodward, Ash Duhrkoop, Ndubuisi Ezeluomba, Sheila Payaqui, Ainslie Harrison, Casey Mallinckrodt, and Kathryn Brugioni Gabrielli

This catalogue, dedicated to the permanent collection of African art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, is innovative in both approach and form and makes a distinct contribution to the genre of museum catalogues centered on African art in major museum collections. The Arts of Africa emphasizes scientific analysis and conservation, providing a perspective that has not been applied to a book-length, comprehensive treatment of an African art collection in a major US museum. Objects that were the subject of analysis by the conservation department cover a wide geographic and temporal expanse, from a depiction of the Last Supper from eighteenth-century Ethiopia to a Twins Seven-Seven work. Instead of treating objects as exemplars of particular types, the emphasis on conservation as a mode of inquiry considers the specific objects within the collection. The conservation perspective brings into focus a central argument and structuring principle of the...