Hair in Black Art and Culture
This exhibit highlights Patricia Evelyn Perry’s A Book about Errors about Hair about Art, one example of how Black artists incorporate hair into their work. In this artist’s book, Perry shares how her views of “good” and “nappy” hair have changed since her childhood. She weaves dreadlocks into the spine and pages of the physical book.
In her book New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair, Jasmine Nichole Cobb, Professor of African and African American Studies and of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke, explores the visual and tactile history of hair in the lives and art of Black people.
Hair in African Art and Culture is the catalog of a 2000 exhibition at The Museum for African Art (New York). The photographs of hairstyles, sculptures, masks, and other representations of African hair culture illustrate the spiritual, political, artistic, and familial significance of hair across the continent.
These are just a few of the resources related to hair in Black art and culture available in Duke Libraries.
Heather Martin, Librarian for African and African American Studies
Resources:
Terry, Patricia Evelyn. A Book about Errors about Hair about Art. Rubenstein Library N7433.4.T47 B66 2014
Sieber, Roy, and Frank Herreman, eds. Hair in African Art and Culture. New York: Museum for African Art, 2000. Rubenstein Library GT2295.A35 H35 2000
Cobb, Jasmine Nichole. New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair. Durham: Duke University Press, 2023. GT2290 .C633 2023 and eBook (Display copy owned by Heather Martin). Cobb is Professor of African and African American Studies and of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke.
