249 - TROWELL (Margaret) & NEVERMANN (Hans). — AFRICA AND OCEANIA

TROWELL (Margaret) & NEVERMANN (Hans). — AFRICA AND OCEANIA TROWELL (Margaret) & NEVERMANN (Hans). Africa and Oceania. French translation by Sonia de La Brélie. Lausanne, Éditions Rencontre, L'Art du Monde series, vol. I, n.d. [circa 1960]. Large quarto, publisher’s binding in black imitation leather, covers adorned with an elaborate geometric design of gilt fillets, ribbed spine similarly decorated with burgundy title labels, gilt head. A comprehensive study devoted to the traditional arts of Africa and Oceania, lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographic reproductions, including numerous full-page images and those on fold-out pages. The section on Africa presents a broad overview of the arts of sub-Saharan Africa: masks, ancestral and cult figures, fetishes, ritual sculptures, dance headdresses, ceremonial objects, and court arts. Notably represented are works by the Baga, Baoulé, Bambara, Mossi, Bobo, Yoruba, Bamoun, and others, drawn from international public and private collections: the British Museum, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, as well as the collections of René d’Harnoncourt, Pierre Vérité, Eliot Elisofon, and Maurice Nicaud, among others. The particularly extensive iconography allows for a comparison of the various African and Oceanic artistic traditions and gives prominence to monumental masks and ritual sculptures. Several compositions are reproduced on large fold-out pages, giving the book a particularly spectacular presentation. Margaret Trowell, a British artist and educator who played an important role in art education in East Africa, is the author of the section devoted to Africa; the German ethnologist Hans Nevermann covers Oceania. A beautiful documentary publication on the so-called “primitive” arts, representative of the major illustrated overviews published in the 1950s and 1960s. A copy in its spectacular decorative publisher’s binding, very characteristic of the L’Art du Monde collection. Some slight wear and scuffing on the binding; interior appears fresh and well-preserved based on the photographs.