Non-Western art played a pivotal role in the making of modernist painting and sculpture. Indeed, without non-Western influences the art of this century is unimaginable. What would the oeuvres of Picasso and Brancusi, to name just two prominent examples, look like had these artists never seen African art?

The relationship between modern and non-Western art was largely predicated on matters of form, and Western artists used motifs from such art with relish and respect. It would be no exaggeration to claim that for some modern artists their affinity with their non-Western counterparts bordered on kinship. Admittedly, such kinship may have been fostered on romantic (and condescending) notions about the enchantments of “primitive” societies; and, in the end, some artists may have been indifferent to the cultures from which the artifacts they admired had originated. This has become, in recent years, a contentious subject.

But isn’t an artist’s responsibility art and not anthropology?

But isn’t an artist’s responsibility art and not anthropology? Given the ideological nature of much contemporary art, such a question may be moot. Yet, one of the noteworthy aspects of the Western artists featured in the recent exhibition “Affinities and Influences: Native American Art and American Modernism”¹ was their attempt at creating a uniquely American modern art by fusing, sometimes promiscuously, European and non-Western sources. It could be said that in doing so they were celebrating cultural diversity. But it should also be said that, above all else, they were pursuing an