Soviet supersystems and American frontiers: African art histories amidst the Cold War

Against the backdrop of colonialism, European writers and artists exalted art from Africa, but it was in the midst of the Cold War that midcentury Soviet and American scholars pursued Africanist art histories as distinct academic fields. Their concurrent projects, revealing divergent approaches and methodologies, burgeoned amid international programs and interdisciplinary research climates, in an era of intense geopolitical rivalry. The United States still dominates Africanist art history, yet the import and legacy of Soviet scholarship has been underexplored, especially on the African continent.