REFRAMING BLACKNESS, what's Black about 'history of art'?

168pp., b/w & colour illus., hardback, d.w., #Merky Books, London, 2025

ISBN: 9781529186406

Alayo Akinkugbe explores the presentation of Black figures in Western art, Blackness in museums, in feminist art movements and in art curricula, to demonstrate how Blackness has been ignored in mainstream art history.

“Akinkugbe is a brilliant new writer and thinker challenging art history. This book is urgent, essential, accessible and it needs to be on every art history reading list." Bernardine Evaristo, Professor of Creative Writing, Brunel University of London, and author of Girl, Woman, Other

"A sparkling debut. Bold, eloquent, personal and clear-eyed, Alayo Akinkugbe is a major new voice in writing about art, museums and culture. This book will shift your frames of reference, expand your canvas, and give you hope for the future - changing how you look at art while also making you look again at your ways of seeing" Dan Hicks, author of The Brutish Museums

Art historian Alayo Akinkugbe runs the Instagram platform @ABlackHistoryofArt, which highlights Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day. She also hosts the podcast, A Shared Gaze, and is a contributing editor and writes the column "Black Gazes" for AnOther magazine. Reframing Blackness is her first book.