For the past two decades, African-American vernacular art of the South - noted for its powerful imagery and colorful palette - has attracted growing art-world interest. This book and its accompanying exhibition, organized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Exhibitions International, present an extraordinary collection of contemporary work that serves as testimony to the continuing struggle for social justice, cultural identity, and spiritual and personal fulfillment experienced by Southern African Americans. Drawn from the collection of Ronald and June Shelp, more than 100 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by twenty-seven self-taught black artists are represented. They range from the most celebrated practitioners - such as Thornton Dial Sr., Bessie Harvey, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Mose Tolliver, and Purvis Young - to less known but no less fascinating figures such as Archie Byron, J. B. Murray, Lorenzo Scott, and Georgia and Henry Speller. The largest group of works are by Dial and by members of his extended family - Arthur Dial, Richard Dial, Thornton Dial Jr., and Ronald Lockett - permitting a survey of the inter-connections within this Alabama dynasty of artists. Once categorized as folk but more recently described as outsider or vernacular, the work of essentially self-taught artists has gained in reputation and value in the last half-century. Testimony is the catalog for a traveling exhibition organized by the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture that features 27 Southern African American vernacular painters and sculptors whose artwork is part of the Ronald and June Shelp Collection. Some of the featured artists are well known in the field, including Thornton Dial Jr., who appeared in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Preceding the biographical information and catalog entries, which are accompanied by portraits of the artists and color reproductions of the objects in the exhibition, are a series of essays by leading scholars on this subject. Besides providing social, art historical, and interpretive commentary on the collection, several essays raise intriguing issues regarding the changing views of the concept of folk, outsider, and vernacular art in contemporary criticism. Although sometimes pedantic, this book can be recommended to any library with an interest in art or African American studies. Eugene C. Burt, Data Arts, Seattle Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. The more attention art historians and critics pay to "outsider" or "vernacular" art, the fuzzier the boundaries become between "in" and "out." Contemporary art is all about going beyond the quotidian to illuminate the deepest reaches of the human condition; it has nothing to do with college degrees or artistic movements and ultimately transcends race, class, and geography. Interest in the work of self-taught African American artists living and working in the South has increased rapidly of late, recognition affirmed and bolstered by this expert consideration of 27 phenomenally talented artists. So potent and evocative are the sculptures and paintings shown here that without the prompting of commentary, the word vernacular wouldn't come to mind, a fact Arthur C. Danto elucidates with his signature verve in his clarion essay, "The End of the Outsider." Danto's is one of five insightful discussions that launch the body of the book, in which vibrant, beautifully reproduced works by such inspired artists as Thorton Dial Sr., Lonnie Holley, and Ronald Lockett are accompanied by biographical profiles. Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Exhibition Schedule: Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, Jan. 12-March 10, 2002 The AXA Gallery, New York City, Apr. 25-July 11, 2002 Tubman African-American Museum, Macon, Georgia, Oct. 1-Dec. 9, 2002 Kinshasha H. Conwill is director emeritus of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Arthur C. Danto is professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University and art critic for The Nation. Edmund Barry Gaither is director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro- American Artists in Boston. Grey Gundaker is associate professor of American studies and anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Judith McWillie is a painter, author, curator, and professor at the University of Georgia in Athens. Used Book in Good Condition