Hardcover. Condition: near fine. First edition. Folio. xv (i), 343, 344-689pp. Box Set. Original pictorial dustjackets over light gray cloth with black lettering on spine housed in matching cloth slipcase. Black endpapers. The crucial influence of the tribal arts - especially those of Africa and Oceania - on modern painters and sculptors has long been recognized. Yet surprisingly, this book is the first comprehensive scholarly treatment of the subject in half a century, and the first ever to illustrate and discuss tribal works collected by vanguard artists. The exhibition became a huge subject of controversy and was described by art historian Thomas McEvilly as "Western Eegotism still as unbridled as in the centuries of colonialism and souvenirism".

Even so this is visually stunning and intellectually provocative work, nineteen heavily illustrated essays by fifteen scholars confront complex aesthetic, art-historical, and sociological problems posed by this dramatic chapter in the history of modern art. Illustrated with impressive colour and b/w images of artifacts and artwork tracing influences and juxtaposing images. Slipcase, bindings and interior in very good condition.