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What is Black Art?
What is Black Art?
Apr 18, 2025 8:14 AM

Author:Alice Correia,Alice Correia

What is Black Art?

A landmark anthology on British art history, bringing together overlooked and marginalized perspectives from 'the critical decade'

What is Black art? This vital anthology gives voice to a generation of artists of African, Asian and Caribbean heritage who worked within and against British art institutions in the 1980s, including Sonia Boyce, Lubaina Himid, Eddie Chambers and Rasheed Araeen. It brings together artists' statements, interviews, exhibition catalogue essays and reviews, most of which have been unavailable for many years and resonate profoundly today. Together they interrogate the term 'Black art' itself, and revive a forgotten dialogue from a time when men and women who had been marginalized made themselves heard within the art world and beyond.

Reviews

We are living in an emerging global business civilisation. The Silent Takeover is the most compelling description yet of this new world, a call to arms to every citizen to reassert an idea of the public realm.

—— Will Hutton

One of the world's leading young thinkers

—— Observer

Destined to leave a more lasting mark on our times

—— The Times

Dr. Hertz has taken the debate into new territory, which is why her book stands out from the crowd

—— Evening Standard

We are living in an emerging global business civilisation. The Silent Takeover is the most compelling description yet of this new world, a call to arms to every citizen to reassert an idea of the public realm.

—— Will Hutton

Dr. Hertz has taken the debate into new territory, which is why her book stands out from the crowd

—— Peter Kellner, Evening Standard

A long overdue, revisionist history of art by the brilliant Katy Hessel ... Never stuffy or supercilious, Hessel's book is a revelation and an important first step towards redressing the balance of an art world in which women have been sidelined, stepped over and trampled upon for far too long

—— Refinery29

An extraordinary achievement that will have a disruptive cultural legacy and help deter­mine the landscape for years to come.

—— Helena Lee , Harper's Bazaar

Well-researched and enlightening

—— Daily Express

Unapologetically revisionist

—— Financial Times

In this astounding, generous book, Katy Hessel has given us such a gift. Her research is profound, scholarly and wide-ranging, her writing authoritative yet accessible. I found so much to surprise and delight in these pages, so many works of art pulsating with life and intelligence, beauty and power. This book is a long-overdue corrective, and Hessel has executed it to perfection, echoing the passion and skill of the very artists she writes about. An astonishing achievement.

—— Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist

Via chronological chapters focusing on periods of change, Hessel leads the reader back through this story, reinstating the countless women whose contributions were missed.

—— RA Magazine

Vital... has firmly cracked open the canon

—— Chloë Ashby, author of WET PAINT , Spectator

A spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavour... The Story of Art Without
Men should be on the reading list of every A-level and university art history course and on the front table of every museum and gallery shop.

—— Laura Freeman , The Times

A magnificent read and a beautiful book

—— David Walliams

Exhilarating ... a dazzling array marshalled by a talented young art historian who grinds her axe sharply and with skill ... [Hessel's] scholarship, enthusiasm and humour make this lavish book a must for any woman who loves art

—— Daily Mail

An illuminating celebration of female artists and their often overlooked place in history

—— Stylist

Passionate, enthusiastic and witty... I wish I had had this book as a teenager

—— The i

A touchpoint for a new generation who will go on to define the future of those exhibitions, collections, and auctions

—— Dazed Digital

This eye-opening read is an overdue revisionist history of art - ignoring the pale, male canon to celebrate female artists who have been overlooked for centuries

—— Best non-fiction books of 2022 , iPaper

The early centuries are thin simply due to the paucity of surviving work by talented women painters but her story becomes fuller and more persuasive the closer it gets to today. Hessel is clear-sighted and impartial enough not to over-claim for her subjects but show that they are full of interest and every bit as worthy of attention as their male peers.

—— Michael Prodger , New Statesmen

Katy Hessel's first book The Story of Art without Men is a necessary and urgent book. A truly empowering title, the volume celebrates the rise of women artists and recentres them within art, political and social history. Many of these artists have been presented at Serpentine and their visions are getting the visibility they deserve through the fantastic visuals and Katy's thorough research

—— Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine

When women are literally written out of history, Hessel conveys how radical, powerful and vulnerable their lives and art were - and still are. Through moments of rage and celebration, this story fundamentally centres creative freedom: the stifling of it, and the lengths endured to claim it.

—— Tiarney Miekus , The Sydney Morning Herald

This passionate and personal telling of what has been an invisible history will bring revelation to anyone entering the world of art and its histories.

—— Iwona Blazwick, Director, The Whitechapel Gallery

Although women have always made art, for far too long, art history has been told as the story of male achievement. Katy Hessel's The Story of Art without Men is a brilliantly readable and lively corrective. Outraged and celebratory, it's chock-full of female trail-blazers - from the Renaissance until the present day - who forged their way, despite facing the kind of hurdles that would stump most mortals

—— Jennifer Higgie, author of The Mirror and the Palette

Compiled with zip and wit, even the informed reader will learn something new on every page - we really cannot recommend it enough

—— The Fence

A sumptuously illustrated history... at once broad in scope and meticulously researched

—— Breeze Barrington , TLS

This book has blown my mind. Really passionately recommend

—— India Knight , Sunday Times

An extraordinary eye-opener, and very readable ... we badly need books like Hessel's

—— Evening Standard

Hessel's beautifully written 500-year survey is a welcome, necessary, addition to the bookshelves

—— Claire Armitstead , Guardian

Highly readable and lavishly illustrated... a rich storehouse of groundbreaking female art

—— Liz Hodgkinson , The Lady

Astonishing

—— Bella Mackie

This book changes everything. As soon as you open it, it's like you've opened a box of lit fireworks - out soars great artist after great artist. Her retake on the canon has changed it forever

—— Ali Smith , Observer

Hessel possesses that rare quality of a public intellectual, whereby she can distill vast amounts of knowledge and history into something accessible, relevant and joyful

—— Pandora Sykes

Extraordinary

—— L.A. Times
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