Portraiture and Photography in Africa

October 15, 2013

Photography arrived in Africa in the 1840s and soon thereafter was appropriated by African-owned studios. As a result, African photography was part of the worldwide circulation of photography by the end of the 19th century. This volume grew out of a 2006 conference held at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Edited by Peffer (art history, Ramapo Coll.) and Cameron (history of art and visual culture, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz), the 13 essays presented here on portrait photography from scholars of African history and visual culture set a research standard. The contributors acknowledge the complexities of context inherent in any study of portraiture that can serve as a reflection of personal identity, a cultural and social object, and, as well, a mediated creation between subject and photographer. The analyses bring on-the-ground and archival research to bear on the understanding of photography within its cultural and political context in historical and contemporary Africa. Each essay is well illustrated and provides extensive citations. VERDICT Upper-level students of visual culture and anthropology have model examples of scholarship in these papers.--Nancy B. Turner, Syracuse Univ. Lib., NY

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