Image of the Black in Western Art, Part III

March 2014 - Panel discussion includes David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London; Ruth Fine, curator (1972–2012), National Gallery of Art; Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History, Duke University; and Sharmila Sen, executive editor-at-large, Harvard University Press. Moderated by Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art. In the 1960s, art collector and philanthropist Dominique de Menil began a research project and photo archive called The Image of the Black in Western Art. Through the collaboration of Harvard University Press and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, the project nears its completion. This panel discussion commemorates the publication of the penultimate volume of the series, The Image of the Black in Western Art: The Twentieth Century: The Impact of Africa (vol. 5, part 1). The last two volumes in the series mark the 20th-century transition from the depiction of people of African descent by others to their self-representation in the US and elsewhere. In this program recorded on February 23, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, the panelists discuss the implications of this dramatic shift in the emphasis of the volumes.