Kathy Curnow’s ‘The Bright Continent- African Art History’: A critical book review

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to provide a constructive and critical summary of Kathy Curnow’s book ‘The Bright Continent- African Art History’ to assist students, researchers and educators of African Art History in their study of the History of African Art. As a good reading resource in the field, Curnow’s book provides a nuanced understanding of the continent of Africa, its diverse art practice and material culture as well as the biting issues of gender and training regarding traditional and contemporary African art practice. This breathtaking book which was published in mid 2023 is making giant inroads in the African Art scholarship for teaching and research. The authors of this paper subjects the key thoughts of Curnow to a critical discourse and shares their experiential knowledge on the critical issues raised in the book. Although this research was conducted to give a chronological account of the history of Africa, the culture, and various art practices involved, the art practices in the period of Egyptian civilization were not given attention. This is probably due to some controversies revolving around the discourse of Egyptian civilization, which mostly, albeit, erroneously, put Africa in a disadvantaged position. Despite that Eurocentric undertone, the book still remains one of the most detailed and extensive chronological accounts of African art, recently published. It is relevant in the study of art at all levels in the academy.