"There are countless ways of looking at African art - in terms of ethnography, aesthetics, history, and the many ways these combine with personal knowledge and preference to influence the viewer. In Africa: Arts and Cultures the world-famous African art collection of the British Museum provides an exceptional opportunity to explore our contemporary knowledge of African objects and the cultures that created them.

The rare pan-African scope of the book allows objects from each of the five regions of Africa to come to light. Many readers familiar with the masks and wooden figures commonly collected a century ago will be surprised also to see the Tunisian wedding tunic included here, or a water bottle of ostrich eggshell from the San in southern Africa, or a multimedia monoprint made by a Nigerian artist in 1999."--BOOK JACKET.