In Art in Mississippi Patti Carr Black focuses on several hundred significant artists and showcases in full color the work of more than two hundred.

Nationally acclaimed native Mississippians are hereGeorge Ohr, Walter Anderson, Marie Hull, Theora Hamblett, William Dunlap, Sam Gilliam, William Hollingsworth, Jr., Karl Wolfe, Mildred Nungester Wolfe, John McCrady, Ed McGowin, James Seawright, and many others. Prominent artists who lived or worked in the state for a significant period of time are included as well - John James Audubon, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Caleb Bingham, William Aiken Walker, and more.

Black explores how art reflects the land and how modes of living and values dictated by Mississippi's changing topography created a variety of art forms. She demonstrates the influence of Mississippi's diverse cultures upon the art and shows how it has responded in many forms - painting, architecture, sculpture, fine crafts - to the changing aesthetics of national art movements.