Painting Ethiopia

The Life and Work of Qes Adamu Tesfaw

Raymond A. Silverman with Neal Sobania and Leah Niederstadt

• $30.00 paperback (9780974872926) Add to Cart
• hardcover not available

• Published: 2005
• Subject Listing: African Art
  
• Bibliographic information: 120 pp., 78 color illus., 10" x 10.5"
• Distributed for: Fowler Museum at UCLA
• Contents

Schooled in the fifteen-hundred-year-old painting tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and ever sensitive to its narrative and iconographic requirements, Ethiopian artist Qes Adamu Tesfaw has managed to transcend the formulas that tradition requires him to embrace. By giving up the priesthood and turning to painting full-time, the artist has also found the freedom to venture outside the realm of religious subject matter to produce work that chronicles historical events both inside and outside Ethiopia, as well as scenes that depict the everyday life of his native country. Adamu's remarkable oeuvre includes saints on horseback, soldiers gathered in historic battles, Solomon and Sheba's courtship, and Ethiopians attending church or praying at mosques.

Raymond A. Silverman is professor of art history and African studies at the University of Michigan. Neal Sobania is professor of history and director of international education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Leah Niederstadt is a doctoral student in social anthropology at Oxford University.

Forewords
Acknowledgments
Note on Orthography
A Brief Account of My Life / Qes Adamu Tesfaw
Painting Ethiopia: The Life and Work of Qes Adamu Tesfaw / Raymond A. Silverman
Catalog / Neal Sobania, Leah Niederstadt, Raymond A. Silverman
References Cited
Contributors