...for only three years, yet continued its broad arts coverage into the 1970s. The coverage of nonvisual arts became sporadic between 1975 and 1978, with only occasional articles on them thereafter. Since the late 1970s, though, this journal has covered plethora of African and Africa-related subjects within the broad purview of visual, performance, and ritual culture: archaeological, early, modern, and contemporary. In fact, it has served to chronicle, in substantial detail and often with fine color illustrations, the progress as well as the state of the African arts field since the late 1960s. Thirty-nine volumes comprising 156 issues stretch to nearly four feet of shelf space as I write. Other statistics tell more:

19,565 photographs (including objects in advertisements)

1,092 articles

624 books reviewed

468 exhibitions reviewed

16 private US collections highlighted

54 museum collections showcased

35 special issues on a single topic, 7 more as tributes

We owe such accomplishments to the support of UCLA over the years (along with some foundation help). Yet mainly we owe African Arts to the dedication of three fine editors for the bulk of its run: the late, silver-tongued, witty John Povey, Doran Ross, and Donald Cosentino. (1) In the year 2000, Ross and Cosentino were joined by Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts and Allen Roberts, and a few years later by Marla Berns and, briefly, Steven Nelson. This team of UCLA Africanists has literally carried the publication for nearly forty years: stemming the tide of financial shortfalls, sweating deadlines, cajoling colleagues for papers and better illustrations, and filling many pages with their own illuminating, entertaining First Word editorials and occasional diatribes, comments on conferences, state-of-the-art reports, superb photographs, and much more. We who read and sometimes write for African Arts are grateful for their tenacity and skill in bringing the magazine/journal miraculously to light four times a year, with the indispensable help of a too-small in-house staff in a too-small office. Especially valuable have been executive editors Amy Futa (who retired in 2004) and, since then, Leslie Jones, as well as the late Alice McGaughey and Greg Cherry, art directors, and...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



More articles from African Arts
Ewe ceramics as the visualization of Vodun.(research note), March 22, 2007
The women of Kalabougou (Mali).(photo essay)(Viewpoint essay), March 22, 2007
Interview with Clive Sithole.(Interview), March 22, 2007
Metaphors, myths and making pots: Chewa clay arts.(Critical essay), March 22, 2007
Namsifueli Nyeki: a Tanzanian potter extraordinaire.(Critical essay), March 22, 2007

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