The Art & Tradition of Beadwork

A fascinating, in-depth look at the culture and history of beaded objects around the world.

From a beaded dress found in an ancient Egyptian tomb to the beaded fringe on a 1920s Parisian flapper’s hem, humans throughout history have used beading as a way to express, adorn, and tell a story. Bol explores beadwork across the world and through the ages, showing how beading has taken on many different styles, forms, and purposes for different cultures. She looks at children’s clothing, puberty ceremonies, burials, emblems of social status and leadership, festivals, and many other cultural occasions that involve the use of beadwork.

Images of artifacts and heirlooms as well as photography of people and their beadwork enhance the scholarship of this book for a beautiful, enlightening addition to art, history, multicultural collections everywhere.

Marsha C. Bol, Ph.D, is a museum director emerita, curator, and author. She taught at the university level for thirty-four years, and served as Director and Curator of Latin American Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Director of the New Mexico Museum of Art; Associate Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Texas in San Antonio; Associate Curator of Anthropology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA; and Curator at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Her academic specialty is Plains Indian, especially Lakota, women’s arts of beadwork, and quillwork.