At the end of the 19th century, Menelik, King of King of Ethiopia, expanded the southern part of his country, doubling its size. Limited bibliographical information is presented here for artistic productions in this part of this modern nation. In fact, the geographic areas covered by this bibliography vary according to the period. For prehistoric art, we give examples in the whole Horn of Africa, which is the scale at which the specialists of this region are working. To follow the historical evolution of the Ethiopian political space, production within what is now Eritrea is sometimes included, particularly for Aksumite and medieval times, but this bibliography cannot be considered comprehensive for more recent arts in Eritrea. Christian art forms have been studied more than other material, but in this bibliography they will be proportionately less represented in order to provide sources for various other fields that have received less scholarly attention. Therefore, this bibliography reflects neither the number of surviving artworks nor the number of the studies done. Furthermore, there is no general overview of all the topics addressed in this bibliography, but such overviews are sometimes existing for subtopics. It must be noted that while Ethiopian names are composed of a personal name followed by the name of a person’s father, in publications and library catalogs the personal name is sometimes taken on as a surname, while sometimes the father’s name is used in this way. Systems of transcription also vary, so diverse spellings will appear in this bibliography.
International Conferences on the History of Ethiopian Art
In addition to international conferences on Ethiopian studies, specific congresses dedicated to art have occurred since 1986. They were organized first at the instigation of the historian Richard Pankhurst, founder of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) at Addis Ababa University, and Stanislaw Chojnacki, keeper of the IES Museum until the revolution, who were both prolific writers on Ethiopian art and history. First focusing on Christian art, the proceedings of these conferences addressed very specific points and do not provide any general overviews.
