Books by Constantine Petridis

Living in the region between the Lubudi and Kasai rivers in south central Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Luluwa people are known for their elaborately carved male and female figure sculptures, masks, and decorative arts. Constantine Petridis draws on first-hand accounts of numerous explorers, missionaries, colonial servants, anthropologists, and art historians who visited the region between the 1880s and the 1970s, to comprehensively situate the Luluwa's ornate art in its original environment of production and use. Through a close study of published and unpublished sources as well as museum objects and archival photographs, this book sheds new light on the historical context of one of central Africa's most spectacular artistic legacies, whose creation presumably dates back to the second half of the 19th century. >Distributed for Mercatorfonds

Features 78 exceptional works - many never published before - drawn from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., and a large number of American private collections

Presents general observations on the immensely rich and diversified artistic heritage of sub-Saharan Africa. This book examines the relationship between contemporary and so-called traditional African arts. It shows that many African works were originally part of an ensemble or one element of a performance.