Painted Bodies of Africa

An extraordinary portfolio of adornment by the world’s leading photographers of African tribal people.

Drawing from their renowned archive of African peoples and cultures, Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher have selected their best photography to celebrate the traditional painting of the human body.

Featured are portraits of the richly colored, detailed, and exquisite body paintings of the Surma, Karo, Maasai, Himba, and Hamar peoples. Their unique use of body painting, adornment, and costume celebrates the creative expressions of the individual. The use of color and texture, jewelry and markings, represents a sense of fashion—ancient and contemporary at once.

Published as a very special, signed limited edition of 350, Painted Bodies, Painted Faces is hand-bound and slipcased, and each copy is individually printed on an Indigo press at the studio of Roberto Edwards in Chile.