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EDITIED COPY
TRANSAFRICAN ART©
By
JEFF R. DONALDSON, Ph.D.
Dean and Professor
College of Fine Arts
Howard University
Washington, D.C. 20059
U.S.A.

Artists have a huge task to carry out because the arts are the common denominator of the human species. 1 In visual art, the image represents the symbolic identity of both the artist and the particular spiritual, cultural and political milieu of its creation. 2 Not surprising then, given the experience of African peoples everywhere over the past five decades, a common basis for struggle and shared aspiration has given birth to a school or style of visual expression that transcends nations barriers, language differences and political ideologies that has been called "Africentric," "Pan-African" and, more recently, "TransAfrican". Artists employing the style seem to prefer the last term since it connotes "across, throughout, beyond and thoroughly changing" - invoking the basis, influences, scope and dynamic nature of the style. The gestation period of the TransAfrican style stretches back to the 1940's when Wildredo Lam, who may be considered the major progenitor of the style, returned to his native Cuba from France to create an astonishing blend of African, Asian and European imagery that denotes a particular sensibility, an attitude towards life, a mystique, 

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1 Joyce Glusberg, 1992.
2 Larry Neal, 1979.