Negro Sculpture

There is hardly any other art which Europeans approach with so much mistrust as African art.

Carl Einstein (1885-1940) was a pivotal figure in the development of European modernism that occurred during the years leading up to World War I. With the short, dense and revolutionary text of Negro Sculpture, Einstein undertook the first (European) critical response to African sculpture, challenging various prejudices and misconceptions around this subject. It would quickly become a crucial text for the European avant-garde and today remains indispensable to understanding the shift in discussion towards non-European art taking place at the time. Originally published in 1915, the complete text of Negro Sculpture is presented in English translation here for the first time, including all 108 original plates.

Patrick Healy, writer and philosopher, currently works as a senior researcher at the Technical University Delft. He lives in Amsterdam. Healy’s forthcoming translations for November Editions include Carl Einstein’s Bebuquin and a revised edition of the selected writings of Karl Kraus, In These Great Times.