Description

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Presenting more than 200 stunning works from Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and Southeast Asia, some published here for the first time, this book explores how Western artists and collectors first came to appreciate art from these previously unknown cultures in the early 20th century. At a time of unprecedented turmoil and upheaval in the art world, artists like Picasso, Man Ray, and others were exposed to African and other art for the first time and became seduced by its power and extraordinary expressiveness. This book explores the role this art has played in the history of modern and contemporary art and looks at the way beauty was perceived through the eye of explorers, ethnographers, artists, collectors, and dealers, who fell in love with what was then called “primitive” art.
 

About the Author

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Christine Valluet has been a specialist in tribal art since the 1970s, dealing with African, Oceanic, Southeast Asian, and North American works, and until 2013 ran a gallery in Paris.