Book of Hours

Book of Hours collects drawings Kara Walker made during the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, in the style of a medieval book of hours.

Roma Publications of Amsterdam issued it in 2022 as a 144-page book designed by Roger Willems. Idea Books lists it as a hardcover, and twelvebooks adds that it has color and black-and-white images and comes with a poster. A line on Roma’s listing says the book has no text or explanation, only drawings made to keep her sanity through those two years. Idea Books describes images that move across periods, from biblical and mythological scenes to historical violence and recent political conflict. Walker’s website lists individual drawings from the series dated 2020 and 2021, among them Book of Hours (Paradise) and Book of Hours (Beating Back the Devil).

Walker was born in Stockton, California, in 1969 and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her biography describes her as best known for silhouetted figures that examine race, gender, sexuality and violence, and lists a MacArthur Foundation award in 1997. Her survey My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love premiered at the Walker Art Center in 2007. In 2014 she made A Subtlety, an installation at the abandoned Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn.