Image and Belief: An Unfinished History of Black Artists

Rediscover 100 Black artists that history has obscured, and transform and diversify your existing ideas of art.

The world of visual art is changing fast. After forever favoring predominantly white, male artists over almost anyone else, museums, galleries, and critics are finally waking up to the vast contribution made by Black artists. But how many Black artists can you name? And how many of them have received the recognition they deserve?

Image and Belief brings together 100 significant artists from across the Black Diaspora and over 200 years of history. Discover the nineteenth-century enslaved potter whose work is only now breaking auction records, or the relatively unknown painters and sculptors who had their own take on the key movements of modern art. And who are the vital contemporary Black artists looking afresh at the imbalances of the past or picturing bold visions of the future?

Alongside texts on each of these 100 artists are additional concise contributions from four leading curators and writers focusing on portraiture, film, photography, curating, and abstraction, each from a Black critic’s perspective.

Embrace a new perspective with this detailed history of Black artists, offering a fresh, alternative, and re-invigorating look at our visual culture. Written by two leading curators and writers, this is a guided exploration and celebration of evocative artwork from the past 200 years.

Jessica Lynne is a writer and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Artforum, The Believer, Frieze, TheLos Angeles Times, TheNation, and Oxford American, where she is a contributing editor. She is the recipient of a 2020 Research and Development award from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, a 2020 Arts Writer Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation, and the inaugural recipient of the Beverly Art Writers Travel Grant awarded in 2022 by the American Australian Association.

Rianna Jade Parker is a critic, curator, and researcher based in south London. She is a founding member of interdisciplinary collective Thick/er Black Lines, whose work was exhibited in the landmark exhibition ’Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers’ at Somerset House, London. She is a Contributing Editor of Frieze magazine and co-curated ’War Inna Babylon: The Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Her first book A Brief History of Black British Art was published by Tate in 2021.