Review of African Textiles, by John Gillow. Thames and Hudson, 2009

Abstract

John Gillow’s African Textiles: Color and Creativity Across a Continent surveys the production of cloth and clothing across the African Continent. Each of the five sections covers a region of the African continent (West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa). Importantly, all of the examples covered are handcrafted. Gillow does an impressive job of including not only woven textiles, but tied and dyed and beaded textiles as well as leatherwork and other examples of clothing wrought from skins. African Textiles includes a glossary, resources for further reading, a guide to museum collections, and a map of the continent.