How to Read African Textiles

The latest volume in The Met's How to Read series, focusing on the rich and varied textiles of Africa through forty exemplars from the nineteenth century to the present day.

Across the African continent, handwoven cloth and clothing have historically been labour-intensive creations deeply embedded in local and regional value systems. These fabrics could be endlessly adapted to communal and individual needs, variously serving to clothe the body, divide architectural space, protect the physical and spiritual well-being of the wearer, and convey the wealth and authority of the owner.

In this volume of The Met's acclaimed and popular How to Read series, readers are guided through forty masterworks of African fibre arts, from a dynamic nineteenth-century interior hanging from Sierra Leone to a dreamlike textile canvas by contemporary Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa. Organized geographically, the book explores the complex histories of production, consumption, and exchange attached to these extraordinary works, providing clear explanations of long-standing and newly embraced techniques and materials, as well as offering readers new ways to appreciate Africa's diverse textile traditions.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press.