“This is indeed an ambitious undertaking that attempts concisely to complicate and reposition the study of the arts of the Afro-Atlantic Diaspora. It shares with its predecessors . . . the desire to underscore the ways in which visual culture contributed to the construction of African American identities and subjectivities. However, unlike those earlier works, Powell attempts to show these processes through the cultural forces that have shaped twentieth-century diasporal concerns. Absent is the biographical celebration of the artist who has weathered despair and racism to achieve “greatness” . . . , yielding a more detached narrative that reveals how ‘black’ imagery engages with larger issues to achieve its symbolic force.” Steven Nelson, book review of Black Art & Culture in the 20th Century, Art Journal, Fall 1998.
Black Art: A Cultural History. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2021 (Expanded edition of Black Art: A Cultural History, 2002 and Black Art & Culture in the 20th Century, 1997). Spanish translation: Arte y Cultura Negros en el Siglo XX. Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, S.A., 1998.
