by:
Coulson, David
Campbell, Alec

Publisher:
Harry N. Abrams
Published:May 1, 2001
ISBN:0810943638
Format:Hardcover
Pages:256

Description: From Publishers Weekly
At the end of the last Ice Age (over 12,000 years ago), artists throughout Africa produced stunning work that survives to this day on boulders and cliffs, and in caves. In African Rock Art: Paintings and Engravings on Stone, Alec Campbell (founder and first director of the National Museum and Art Gallery of Botswana) and photographer David Coulson (coauthor, Namib, The Lost World of the Kalahari) survey the genre with more than 200 color photos and 178 line drawings that detail elements of these complex compositions. From 20-foot giraffes carved into stone in Niger's Aand#139;r Mountains to a (probably) 6,000-year-old Libyan painting of a hairdressing scene, the photos are hauntingly beautiful. In addition to its considerable contributions to art history and human history the book, with its foreword by the late star paleontologist Mary Leakey, should raise public awareness of the plight of these masterpieces, now endangered by erosion and vandalism.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description:
It was like entering an obscure art gallery and stumbling across a Renoir. "That was how British photographer David Coulson described for People magazine the wonder and astonishment he experienced upon first gazing at an engraving of two majestic 20-foot-tall giraffes carved into stone in Niger's Aand#239;r Mountains-among the largest prehistoric engravings ever found. Readers will share his awe in the pages of this breathtaking volume, the first comprehensive illustrated book on Africa's rock art from prehistoric times to the 20th century.

Covering the entire continent, this magnificently illustrated book contains more than 200 full-color photographs of Africa's rock art, together with historical and interpretive analysis. Coulson and former museum director Alec Campbell scoured the remotest areas of Africa in their efforts to raise public awareness of the variety, importance, and frailty of these extraordinary works, many of which are endangered by erosion, theft, and vandalism.