The Birth of Art in Africa by Bernard De Grunne

I picked this up because the price dropped and it has sat on my wish list for some time. This book had its genesis in show of Nok pieces in Luxembourg (of all places!) in 2000/2001.

I doubt there is anyone on Libarything with a similar interest in West African terracottas, much less anyone that will encounter my review. Nevertheless, I found the book useful for its discussion of Katsina and Sokoto pottery. This book classifies Katsina and Sokoto style terracottas as subsets of a larger Nok culture and provides helpful photographs illustrating the subsets to provide a visual reference for the classification. There also was a helpful discussion on TL testing and Carbon 14 dating as it relates to Nok pottery. Like other books on the Nok, relatively little is known about the culture so this is not a large book. I thought The Nok Culture: Art in Nigeria 2500 Years Ago by Gert Chesi to be a better overview of the subject and also showing a broader array of Nok terracotta. However, for classification purposes The Birth of Art in Africa was more useful. ( )

dust jacket