Gwendolyn

Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker

Reviews

"Shaw's book places [Kara Walker's] work within a larger artistic canon, which contextualizes the significance of her works and the phenomenal artistic talent. . . . [A]ccesible. . . . [E]venhanded. . . ."
--Tracey Lewis, Black Issues Book Review

"Shaw's 'reading' of [Walker's work] is intriguing and seemingly flawless. . . . Those interested in art history and issues of race and representation will surely find this book rewarding, but possibly unsettling."
--KaaVonia Hinton, Foreword

"[A] timely collection of essays dedicated to disentangling the intricacies of Kara Walker's disturbing and evocative artworks. . . . DuBois Shaw's book should be appreciated as the first notable attempt to position Walker's impressive body of work solidly within a rigorous scholarly framework."
--Derek Conrad Murray, Parachute

“As we work like Kara Walker to build a just and post-racist society, this important artist is discussed thoughtfully and appreciatively by a serious scholar in a well-written book.”
--Michael R. Mosher, Leonardo Digital Reviews

“[A] rich, careful, and important exploration of one of America’s most significant artists: Kara Walker. . . . Seeing the Unspeakable is especially important for readers interested in how the suppression of African American art history has influenced contemporary artists.”
--Christine Hamm, Altar Magazine

“[A]ppealing and thought provoking. . . . Shaw provides a comprehensive analysis of Walker’s relevance in art history and her place in larger discussions of race and gender in society.”
--Jennifer Heusel, Woman’s Art Journal

Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century

Reviews

"Based on original research, [Portraits of a People] engages with the questions that historians care about. . . . For those of us interested in how portraits represent the self and reveal the social order, this is an important study." --Jack Larkin, Journal of the Early Republic

"Portraits of a People presents itself as a highly compelling project with a life well beyond its documentation of an ephemeral exhibition. The catalogue is certain to find an important place in college surveys of African American and American art, and will likely inspire even more art historians to turn to the museum as a stage for their arguments." -Tanya Sheehan, CAA Reviews

"The questions raised by Portraits of a People invite scholars to reconsider nineteenth-century images of African Americans, and provide them with new possibilities for recognizing and analyzing how dynamics of heritage affected identity construction and might have found expression in visual imagery." - Susanna Gold, American Quarterly

"Portraits of a People provides a new window onto the lives and the interests of the black folks who sat for these portraits and of the artists who constructed their images; lives that otherwise would have been less evident to us and whose visual trace might have been lost to the flux of history." - Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , Harvard University

Sunnylands

Read my essay on the paintings at the Annenberg family estate at Sunnylands in this new book from Penn Press!