African Masks: From the Barbier-Mueller Collection Paperback – May 25, 2010

I have not read this book cover to cover, but gave it away as a Christmas gift. I flipped through it with my boyfriend when it arrived. He loves all art and creative endeavors and was so jealous that I was giving this away!The prints are beautiful and the layout of the book seems very nice too. It's very versatile. It has a story to it since it isn't "just" pictures. It has a lot of text as well which is nice since so many books with prints are 1 print + 1 description per page which always leaves me with so many questions about what I'm looking at.The recipient of this gift really loves it, so I would definitely recommend this.**Needless to say, everyone has there own opinions and it might not be the most comprehensive or highest regarded text on African masks (maybe it is--I have no idea), but I like it and the recipient likes it and thats all I wanted.

A very useful catalogue of this world famous collection. The images are quite good, especially the archival photographs showing these or similar masks in cultural context.

Really rich variety of masks from the continent. I use this book to inspire mask-making in art therapy

"Let us not delude ourselves: African Art is a concept that goes back only a few decades"....I just received this book, but this ridiculous statement makes me question the legitimacy of any of the information presented here. African art is many millennia old and the types referenced in this book go back centuries despite the authors clear misinformation. The author clearly seeks to dodge the reality the origins of European art, specifically that of the renaissance era, borrowed extensively from African art. Luckily I bought this book for the art; I can ignore the typical misinformed commentary.

I'm a maskmaker. I have been checking this book out of the library, renewing it for as long as possible, returning it, and checking it out again for the past year. I finally broke down and bought it. The photos are well done and demonstrative of the pieces, and the pieces themselves cover a wide range of geographical, and contextual, space.

I consider this a "must" for any serious African mask collector. The font is really small and I wish there will be more big pictures not only the small ones at the end of the book.

Beautiful pictures

Interesting info on the different masks from different regions of the African continent. Also used for research in appraisal of african art.

I got this as a visual study and reference book for a private project; I've always been interested in the appropriation of ethnic art in early 20th century painting – Picasso, Modigliani, the German Expressionists, etc.This compact, flexicover volume provides examples of 248 masks from this prestigious collection, with 100 pieces presented in full-page colour photos, along with additional illustrations and explanatory texts on the facing page.A very useful book for my purposes – it`s a real shame there is no “Look inside” option available.

Just as described

EXCELLENT , so much info and nice illustrations and full of inspirational images

top quality very very good book Many thanks.

I travelled to Africa recently and during my travels came across some very interesting masks which I didn't know much about. My search on Amazon brought me to the attention of this wonderful book which had quite a lot of detail and history on all tribal masks across Africa.For anyone interested in discovering the ethnic and historical background of African masks, then this book is for you.Highly recommended.