Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 2: African American Vernacular Art [Hardcover]

William S. Arnett (Author), William Arnett (Author), Lowery Sims (Author), Jane Livingston (Author), Paul Arnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2001

Completing the two-volume set, Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 2 takes the visual and historical presentation of the first volume to a richer level, offering an even broader array of artistic styles and media. Published in 2000, the first volume explored the diverse historical roots of the genre and introduced artists whose work recalled the South of the pre–civil rights era. This sequel brings the movement into the present, delving into the work of the current generation of artists who are creating a complex form of art that blurs the boundaries between folk and contemporary art.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Tinwood Books (October 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 096537663X
• ISBN-13: 978-0965376631
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 10.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Maude Southwell Wahlman was born in Manhatten, New York City, where she attended Friends Seminary School. She attended Friends Central High School in Philadelphia, then Rockford College, The University of Iowa, The University of Arizona, and received a BA in Art from Colorado College. She attended graduate school at Northwestern University, for an MA in Anthropology, and Yale University for a Ph.D. in Art History. She began her teaching career at the University of Mississippi, then was Chair of the Art Department at the University of Central Florida, and enjoyed a year as a Resident Research Scholar at the W.E.B. DuBois Center for Research on Black Culture at Harvard, before accepting a position as the Dorothy and Dale Thompson/Missouri Endowed Professor of Global Arts at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sensational - Deeper than Volume 1, December 5, 2006

By 

Peter Goodman (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 2: African American Vernacular Art (Hardcover)

Anyone that has Vol 1 needs to buy this Vol or even if you have an interest in some of the listed artists in this book and don't have Vol 1 buy this one. Vol 1 had a general history of African American Vernacular Art where as this volume has a more in depth look at particular artists and their enviroments. The essays are longer and you get many more examples of each artists work as well as many pictures of the artists in their environments or the art in the original environments or even in a few cases the artists working on pieces.

To see the art in it's original environment gives the proper perspective to understanding the nature of the art.

I think this book is definately the equal or if not better than the first and it is wonderful of the Arnetts to put two books together of such high quality at affordable prices. I dream of a third book.

When these books sell out people will be climbing over the top of each other to get them and the price of secondhand copies will skyrocket.
Don't miss out

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Production, Assembled with no Common Sense, June 23, 2010

By 

Tam Mossman (Undisclosed) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 2: African American Vernacular Art (Hardcover)

To start with the positives: Every work is shown in full color. The well-chosen works of Thornton Dial and Ronald Lockett give you the full scope of these artists' work. But the hodgepodge of other artists--and the works illustrated--seem to have been picked at random, with no criteria whatsoever and still less discrimination.

Some familiar, popular artists are over-represented. For examples, Mary T. Smith gets 27 pages of lovely paintings that swiftly become repetitious. Purvis Young gets 39 pages; photos of his illustrated books take up way too much space. Mary Proctor is passed over in a twinkling, we get to see none of her vibrant, ecstatic pictures of women in religious rapture.

These mixed blessings aside, the book becomes a real dog's lunch. The reader must trudge through Pearl Fryar's site-specific topiary "sculptures" in the outdoors, and George Kornegay's hillside of used tires. Down through Emmer Sewell's old automobile tire surmounted by a plastic chair, and Asberry Davis's piles of junk overgrown with weeds: "I tie things up to my fences and my trees."

Then there's Dinah Young--whose many illustrated works include a pile of logs, a milk jug and old broom; dead branches piled at the foot of a tree; a branch atop of an upended 5-gallon paint can; and backyard graves for a baby possum and raccoon.

The clueless interviewer assumes that she's making a statement.

She disagrees: "How many times I got to tell you . . . I'm just piling up old junk. I'm doing not a damn thing else."

The interviewer will have none of that. He tries again: "Don't you care how they look?"

"I don't make no design of them. I don't be making ANYTHING." She is so right!

Worse yet, this tome is MASSIVE, with a trim size of 10.5" by 12.5" and a weight of more than 7 pounds. With half as many artists and only a third of the illustrations, this might have been a far, far better book and a real joy.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Souls Grown Deep vol 1, June 21, 2010

By 

T. Horne - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 2: African American Vernacular Art (Hardcover)

An eye-opening overview of the significant art happening in the USA in the second half of the twentieth century, far from the eyes of the New York tastemakers.