Monographs
Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, Purveyors (Tsehai Publishers, 2022)
Ethiopian Church Art is the first monograph to examine the magnificent paintings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church through the eyes of the individuals who make, commission, and sell them. It explores the social and cultural contexts in which religious paintings are created and used in Ethiopia by immersing the reader in the lives and work of painters, patrons, and purveyors of paintings that are found not only in today’s churches but also souvenir shops.
Devotional imagery has played a vital role in sustaining the spiritual well-being of Ethiopians for over fifteen hundred years. Accessible as illuminated manuscripts, wood panel icons, and on the walls of churches, narrative paintings have served as a vehicle for passing the core beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from one generation to the next. They also have offered the faithful a tangible means for seeking spiritual intercession. Though its origins may be traced to Byzantine and Early Christian visual practice, it is a dynamic tradition that is uniquely Ethiopian, a tradition that continues to evolve as an expression of piety and, since the early twentieth century, as a source of artifacts for global souvenir and art markets.
Ethiopian Church Art is a groundbreaking ethnography based on twenty-five years of research in the northern Ethiopian city of Aksum and in Addis Ababa working with over two hundred individuals. Sumptuously illustrated, it has been designed to engage and inform the reader both visually and textually.
Authors: Raymond Silverman and Neal Sobania
Format: 10.25 x 13 in; 332 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59907-290-6 (Paperback) | 978-1-59907-291-3 (Hardcover)
Available from Tsehai Publishers and Amazon
National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics (Routledge, 2022)
National Museums in Africa brings the voices of African museum professionals into dialogue with scholars and, by so doing, is able to consider the state of African national museums from fresh perspectives.
Covering all regions of the continent, the volume’s 13 chapters allow for a deep and nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between past and present in contemporary Africa. Taking stock of the shifting museum landscape in Africa, with new players like China and South Korea challenging the conditions of cultural exchange, the book demonstrates that national museums are being rediscovered as important sites of political engagement and cultural negotiation. This is the first book to critically examine the roles national museums in Africa have played in the societies in which they are situated, but it is also the first to consider the roles that national museums might play in current debates concerning the restitution and repatriation of cultural patrimony taken from Africa during the colonial era.
Informed by a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this ground-breaking book will appeal to anyone interested in museums in Africa. It will be particularly useful to scholars and students working in the areas of museum and heritage studies, African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, art history and cultural studies.
Editors: Raymond Silverman, George Abungu and Peter Probst
Format: 6.25 x 9.5 in; 284 pages
ISBN: 978-0-36782-140-1 (Hardcover) | 978-1-0030-1369-3 (e-Book)
Available from Routledge, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Looking Back, Looking Forward: Looking Back, Looking Forward: Visual Art Studies in Ghana (Special Issue of Ghana Studies, vol 25, 2022)
The visual arts of Ghana have been the focus of a vital field of study for over sixty years. Since only a few articles dealing with visual art have appeared in Ghana Studies over the last twenty plus years, we thought it fitting to dedicate an issue of the journal to assessing how the visual arts of Ghana have been approached by scholars, art critics, and curators. We have given this thematic issue of Ghana Studies the title “Looking Back, Looking Forward,” which signals our interest in exploring where the field of Ghanaian visual art studies has been, where it is now, and where it might go in the future.
We chose to involve as many colleagues as possible in this project as a means for demonstrating the breadth and depth of scholarship on the visual arts of Ghana. We invited colleagues to contribute short essays that offer snapshots of a wide array of subjects. Together, the 15 articles, conversations, and exhibition reviews are intended to convey the vitality of the field of Ghanaian art and visual culture studies.
Editors: Raymond Silverman and Allison Martino
Available online at: Project Muse
Articles / Book Chapters
“Do Masquerade: Reflections on History, Ethnicity, and Religion in the Bondoukou Region of Côte d’Ivoire and Beyond.” African Arts 58 (2) 2025: 66–76.
“Doran Ross the Scholar of Akan Art,” with Nii O. Quarcoopome. African Arts 55 (1) 2022: 20–25.
“National identities and the National Museum of Ethiopia,” with Merkeb Mekuria Zemba. National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics, ed. R. Silverman, G. Abungu and P. Probst, pp. 56–72. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York; New York, Routledge, 2021.
“Introduction: Regarding national museums in Africa,” with Peter Probst and George Abungu. National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics, ed. R. Silverman, G. Abungu and P. Probst, pp. 1–16. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York; New York, Routledge, 2021.
“Akan Metal Arts, Yesterday and Today,” In Peace, Power and Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, ed. S. Cooksey, pp. 39–61. Gainsville, FL, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, 2020.
“Forging Faith: Ethiopian Iron Crosses,” In Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths, eds. M. Berns, W. Dewey, T. Joyce and A. Roberts, pp. 420–423. Los Angeles, Fowler Museum, 2019.
“Red Gold: Things Made of Copper, Bronze and Brass.” In Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. K. B. Berzock, pp. 256–267. Evanston, IL, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2019.
