African studies have hitherto been largely deficient in the attention given to that central element of culture which we Europeans call ‘art’ or ‘the arts’, but which traditional Africa did not compartmentalise either in name or in fact. Since the great changes through which Africa is passing are almost all in the direction of materialism and international conformity, it is not surprising, but none the less regrettable, that even anthropologists have usually accorded to African art a peripheral, though not always unhonoured status. This has now been boldly remedied by the inauguration in Souther Rhodesia of what it is hoped will be a regular series of international con gresses of African culture.