ART & ARTISTS OF SOUTH AFRICA is the most comprehensive reference work on South African art yet published. Its 368 pages provide information on every facet of South African artistic activity during the past century.

In addition to more than 300 biographies of painters and graphic artists, 190 of them in depth, there are numerous articles devoted to galleries and institutions, art groups and associations, as well as to the history of art activity in the main centres of South Africa. Various classes of painting and graphic procedures are given individual consideration and the leading exponents in these fields are listed. The reader will also find articles on a wide range of interesting topics, such as Art Periodicals, Forgeries, National Exhibitions, Ndebele Painting, Reproductions, etc.

Art & Artists of South Africa has been designed in Dictionary form, with each page appropriately keyed for convenience in locating information. Its value is additionally enhanced by an excellent Index listing several thousand cross-references. A prefatory. Historical Survey outlines the sequence and the sources of the careers and movements dealt with in the Dictionary section of the book, and the concise Historical Table provides immediate reference on concurrent national and international events during any year between 1875 and 1960.

Librarians, museums personnel and students particularly will welcome the extensive Bibliography and they, together with the general reader, will be interested to find gathered together for the first time ever in a single volume the names of all South African participants in major national and international exhibitions. A further feature is the Register of Artists, which lists more than 700 painters and graphic artists who have exhibited professionally in South Africa.

The informative text is superbly supported by 600 illustrations, 50 of these in full colour. Layout has been expertly designed and master printers have given close attention to the quality of reproduction.

Truly a book to value and to use. Art & Artists of South Africa will have an assured place on the bookshelf wherever there is interest in South Africa and its cultural activity.