Books by Raymond Silverman
Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, Purveyors, 2022
Sumptuously illustrated with over 300 color photographs, this groundbreaking study explores the v... more Sumptuously illustrated with over 300 color photographs, this groundbreaking study explores the vital role of devotional paintings in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church through the lives and work of the individuals who make, commission and sell them. Designed to engage and inform the reader both visually and textually, Ethiopian Church Art will appeal to a wide and diverse audience, both general and academic, interested in art, art history, religion, history, Ethiopia and Africa.
Ethiopian Church Art is based on twenty-five years of research in the northern Ethiopian town of Aksum and in Addis Ababa, working with over two hundred individuals. Whereas Addis Ababa, the country’s capital, is a relatively new city, Aksum has been continuously occupied for over 2000 years. It was the capital of the ancient state of Aksum and the place where Christianity was introduced in the fourth century. Today it is a holy city and an important center for Orthodox painting.
As the authors, Raymond Silverman and Neal Sobania explain in the Introduction to their image-rich study, “We anticipate that some readers will open the book and want to read its text, while others will be interested in its visual imagery. We of course hope that the reader is interested in both image and text and suggest that they be explored in tandem. With this goal in mind, a good deal of thought has gone into making the book accessible as both a visual and literary text.”
National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics, 2022
brings the voices of African museum professionals into dialogue with scholars and, by so doing, i... more brings the voices of African museum professionals into dialogue with scholars and, by so doing, is able to consider the state of African national museums from fresh perspectives. Informed by a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this groundbreaking book will appeal to anyone interested in museums in Africa. It will be particularly useful to scholars and students working in the areas of museum and heritage studies, African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, art history and cultural studies.
Museum as Process explores a variety of strategies for engaging source communities in the process... more Museum as Process explores a variety of strategies for engaging source communities in the process of translation and the collaborative mediation of cultural knowledges. Scholars from around the world reflect upon their work with specific communities in different parts of the world – Australia, Canada, Ghana, Great Britain, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States. Each global case study provides significant insights into what happens to knowledge as it moves back and forth between source communities and global sites, especially the museum. Museum as Process is an important contribution to understanding the relationships between museums and source communities and the flow of cultural knowledge.
Vivid paintings of rural and urban life, striking depictions of Christianity from an Ethiopian pe... more Vivid paintings of rural and urban life, striking depictions of Christianity from an Ethiopian perspective, unusually layered images of the political and military exploits of Ethiopian rulers…these are the innovative creations of Qes Adamu Tesfaw. Adamu’s work ranges from the devotional to the popular and thus cannot be neatly categorized. Schooled in the philosophy and aesthetics of a fifteen-hundred-year-old tradition associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, he left the priesthood to turn to painting full-time, finding the freedom to venture beyond religious subject matter and to develop a style all his own. This beautiful traveling exhibition presented thirty-five of the artist's finest paintings produced over the past forty years.
Papers by Raymond Silverman
History in Africa, 2004
Scholarship dealing with the social, historical, or technological aspects of working non-ferrous ... more Scholarship dealing with the social, historical, or technological aspects of working non-ferrous metals in Ethiopia is very limited. 2 That which has been undertaken is narrowly focused among the Semitic Christian peoples of the Ethiopian highlands. The distinctive crosses-processional crosses, hand crosses and neck crosses-of the Ethiopian 1R. Pankhurst, "The Old-Time Handicrafts of Ethiopia," Ethiopia Obseruer 8(1964),221-42 2Even studies of ironworking and the role of blacksmiths in society are limited, although there are a few good sources, such as H. Amborn, Di((erenzierung und Integration. Vergleichende Untersuchungen zu Spezialisten und Handwerkern in
Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths, 2019
Peace, Power and Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, , 2020
National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics,, 2022
How this volume came about Recent debates about the restitution of heritage objects taken from Af... more How this volume came about Recent debates about the restitution of heritage objects taken from Africa during the colonial era have thrust African national museums into the limelight. But what do we know about these important institutions? Not a lot. As part of the process of becoming independent nation-states, virtually all Africa's 54 nations established national museums with the primary responsibility of representing the nation to their respective citizens as well as to the rest of the world. In doing so, they were charged with conserving and exhibiting cultural heritage upon which national identities have been inscribed. Despite their apparent importance, little has been written about national museums in Africa. There are a number of journal articles and chapters in books that consider specific museums, but little that offers a comprehensive view of the continent and nothing that considers the various trajectories that national museums have taken over the last 60 years, since the era of independence for Africa's nations. 1 In light of recent debates that address the allied issues of decolonization (i.e., confronting the legacies of colonialism) and the restitution of expropriated heritage objects, seeking a better understanding of these vital institutions seems particularly timely. So it was back in April 2016, when two of the editors, Probst and Silverman, met in Boston at Tufts University, that we hatched the plan to bring together a group of colleagues from the Global South and North to explore the histories and current state of Africa's national museums. The 2017 Triennial Symposium on African Art in Accra was on the horizon, so we submitted a proposal for a triple panel that sought to offer broad regional representation on the subject. 2 A number of key issues informed our conceptualization of the panel. First, we were aware that with very few exceptions national museums in Africa had their origins in the colonial era, virtually all of them have evolved from institutions established by colonial governments. Since independence, national museums have pursued a variety of trajectories, some similar to the work of the past, others radically different. We decided to give BK-TandF-SILVERMAN_9780367821401-210187-Intro.indd 1 25/05/21 2:49 PM BK-TandF-SILVERMAN_9780367821401-210187-Intro.indd 2 25/05/21 2:49 PM BK-TandF-SILVERMAN_9780367821401-210187-Intro.indd 12 25/05/21 2:49 PM
National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics, 2022
The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories, and Infrastructures, 2015
University Museums and Collections Journal, 2011
In this article, we discuss some recent experiences of two museums at the University of Michigan.... more In this article, we discuss some recent experiences of two museums at the University of Michigan. We use these cases -of the removal of Native American dioramas from the Exhibit Museum of Natural History and of responses to repatriation by the Museum of Anthropology -as a lens through which to examine the challenges, and the potentials, of university museums. We begin by describing the museums within the broader framework of museum culture at the University of Michigan, and the recent financial and organizational challenges they have faced. Moving from these structural challenges, we shift to debates about the content and missions of two museums that in somewhat different ways are each involved in disputes over culture and ownership. We explore how each museum has responded to these disputes and how each has interacted with multiple stakeholder communities, both within and beyond the university. We conclude by suggesting that the conflicts themselves are productive and that university museums can play important roles in engaging students, researchers, descendent communities, and the larger public in discussions of complex ethical and cultural issues.
African Arts, 2004
... When he was a little older, he learned these paintings had been produced by men, one of them,... more ... When he was a little older, he learned these paintings had been produced by men, one of them, Aleqa Kassa Getahun, his uncle. ... He was fortunate that his godfather was Yohannes Tessema, a prominent artist who had arrived in Addis Ababa from Bichena in 1933. ...
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Books by Raymond Silverman
Ethiopian Church Art is based on twenty-five years of research in the northern Ethiopian town of Aksum and in Addis Ababa, working with over two hundred individuals. Whereas Addis Ababa, the country’s capital, is a relatively new city, Aksum has been continuously occupied for over 2000 years. It was the capital of the ancient state of Aksum and the place where Christianity was introduced in the fourth century. Today it is a holy city and an important center for Orthodox painting.
As the authors, Raymond Silverman and Neal Sobania explain in the Introduction to their image-rich study, “We anticipate that some readers will open the book and want to read its text, while others will be interested in its visual imagery. We of course hope that the reader is interested in both image and text and suggest that they be explored in tandem. With this goal in mind, a good deal of thought has gone into making the book accessible as both a visual and literary text.”
Papers by Raymond Silverman
Ethiopian Church Art is based on twenty-five years of research in the northern Ethiopian town of Aksum and in Addis Ababa, working with over two hundred individuals. Whereas Addis Ababa, the country’s capital, is a relatively new city, Aksum has been continuously occupied for over 2000 years. It was the capital of the ancient state of Aksum and the place where Christianity was introduced in the fourth century. Today it is a holy city and an important center for Orthodox painting.
As the authors, Raymond Silverman and Neal Sobania explain in the Introduction to their image-rich study, “We anticipate that some readers will open the book and want to read its text, while others will be interested in its visual imagery. We of course hope that the reader is interested in both image and text and suggest that they be explored in tandem. With this goal in mind, a good deal of thought has gone into making the book accessible as both a visual and literary text.”