Train your eye
The Gallery
Study pieces, each one echoing a movement in the archive. Read the caption, then try to catch the same cues in the next picture before you read it.
Portrait in blocks
echoes Ndebele Geometric Painting
Thick black outlines, flat unshaded color blocks, mirror symmetry across a central axis.
Market day, full sun
echoes Tinga Tinga Enamel Painting
Glossy enamel finish, flat background color, pattern filling every hide and cloth.
Drummers and the ring of light
echoes Harlem Renaissance Silhouette Deco
Flat silhouettes, concentric rings of radiating light, layered green-and-violet tone bands.
Nine languages, one wall
echoes the whole archive
Geometric mural blocks, enamel folk animals, deco silhouettes, and pieced quilt bars side by side.
Faras Nubian Murals
Faras, Nubia (northern Sudan) · 8th–12th century
- frontal, unmoving poses
- gold or ochre halos
- wide almond eyes
Tinga Tinga Enamel Painting
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania · 1968 onward
- high-gloss enamel finish
- flat single-color background
- patterned animal hides
Kinshasa Popular Painting
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo · 1970s onward
- hand-lettered text in the image
- flat sign-painter color
- crowded street scenes
Ndebele Geometric Painting
Mpumalanga, South Africa · 20th century onward
- thick black outlines around every shape
- flat unshaded blocks of color
- chevrons, steps, and gable shapes
Gee's Bend Quilt Modernism
Boykin (Gee's Bend), Alabama · early 1900s onward
- off-kilter, improvised geometry
- salvaged work-clothes fabric
- bars and blocks out of alignment
Harlem Renaissance Silhouette Deco
Harlem, New York City · 1920s–1930s
- flat silhouetted figures
- concentric rings of radiating light
- overlapping translucent tonal bands
Kalighat Pat
Kolkata, India · 19th century
- one sweeping, swelling contour line
- flat unshaded watercolour washes
- empty, undecorated background
Alebrijes
Mexico City & Oaxaca, Mexico · 1930s onward
- hybrid impossible creatures
- dense dot-and-line surface pattern
- electric, clashing color
Ghanaian Hand-Painted Movie Posters
Ghana · 1980s–1990s
- enormous foreground face
- hand-lettered shadowed title text
- flour-sack canvas weave and seam