Research

Henry Drewal is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies in the Department of Art History and the Adjunct Curator of African Art at the Elvehjem Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He received his B.A. from Hamilton College and his M.A. in African Studies and Ph.D. from Columbia University.  His research interests include African and African Diaspora art history.  He has served as Curator of African Art at the Neuberger Museum-SUNY-Purchase (1986), The Cleveland Museum of Art (1988-90), and Curator of African Art at the Toledo Museum of Art (1989).  Over the years he has published several books and edited volumes and many articles on various aspects of African art, primarily on the arts of Yoruba-speaking peoples of West Africa and the Yoruba diaspora in the Americas.  His books include: Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe, The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts, Yoruba Art and Aesthetics, Gelede: Art and Female Power Among the Yoruba, and Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought.  He has curated many exhibitions of African art, the most recent being Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe (with John Mason), which toured five US cities (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Madison, and New York) between 1998-2000.  The book/catalogue for the exhibition was a finalist for the Arts Council of the ASA award in 2001.  Recently, he has begun research (funded with a Senior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies) on the arts, identities, cultures, and histories of African descendants in India.  In addition, he is currently working on a major book and traveling exhibition entitled "Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and other Afro-Atlantic Water Spirits" being organized by the Fowler Museum of Cultural History - UCLA.