African-American art has made an increasingly vital contribution to the art of the United States from the time of its origins in early-18th century slave communities. This book offers perspectives about race, class and gender, and slave and free black communities in the first half of the 19th century. It discusses folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts alongside fine art, sculptures, paintings, and photography during the 1800s. It examines the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, the Era of Civil Rights and Black Nationalism through the 1960s and 1970s, and the emergence of new black artists and theorists in the 1980s and 1990s. New evidence suggests different ways of looking at African-American art, confirming that it represents the culture and society from which it emerges. Sharon F. Patton explores significant issues such as the relationship of art and politics, the influence of galleries and museums, the growth of black universities, critical theory, the impact of artists' collectives, and the assortment of art practices since the 1960s.