The Art of the Weya Women

Ilse Noy

 

The book is out of print.

Synopsis

This attractively produced book, with many color photographs, is a collaboration between rural Zimbabwean women and a German artist and art teacher, Ilse Noy. Noy originally taught Zimbabwean women in the Weya Communal Area sewing and painting, to help them supplement their subsistence farming earnings. Through their art, the women revealed aspects of their lives and traditions. They talk about their work in the captions with the color photographs of the best of their artwork. In the accompanying text, the women talk about their worlds of marriage and children, sexuality and death, spirits and ancestors, hopes and worries. The book is at once a book about the art of the women, and a glimpse into the fabric of the artists' lives.

Review

The Art of the Weya Women men holds in its pages a contagious jubilation for the creativity and success of an exciting development in contemporary African art. - Natalie Nagle, African Arts

Author

During the 1980s, Ilse Noy, an art teacher worked in Zimbabwe for the German Volunteer Service.