Ninety renowned masterpieces of African art that inspired artists at the Walt Disney studios.

In 2005, the Walt Disney Company donated its Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Considered one of the world's finest collections of African art, the Disney-Tishman Collection contains iconic pieces dating from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries and showcases art that represents seventy-five peoples and twenty countries. This book explores the many ways that the collection reflects Africa's rich history and culture and focuses particularly on objects used in performance, rituals, and as emblems of power.

Figures carved in stone, wood, and ivory; stools, masks, crowns, jewelry, and hunting tools--each object is presented in vivid color plates and accompanied by texts providing information about the objects' history, uses, and materials. This beautiful book accompanies the first public presentation of the collection in the past twenty years, permitting a new generation to experience one of America's national treasures.