Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now

Met Museum publications make the perfect gifts for art lovers.

By Akili Tommasino
With contributions by Andrea Myers Achi, Erykah Badu, Makeda Best, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Awol Erizku, Lauren Halsey, Iman Issa, Solange Knowles, Mia Matthias, Julie Mehretu, Kai Mora, JenniferNewsom, Matthew Shenoda, and Fred Wilson

From the late nineteenth century onward, Black Americans looked to ancient Egypt as evidence of a preeminent ancient culture from the African continent. Flight into Egypt traces ancient Egypt’s influence on artists, from Edmonia Lewis’s sculpture The Death of Cleopatra (1876) to the efflorescence of Afrocentric visual art during the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and artistic tendencies of the ensuing decades. This volume explores…See More