Book DescriptionImages of Congo brings to light New York artist Anne Eisner who lived in the former Belgian Congo (now DRC) during the 1940s and 1950s. Her passion for maverick field anthropologist Patrick Putnam brought her to the place he founded, CampPutnam, at the edge of the Ituri Forest. Her commitment to the people there made her stay for nine years. An eccentric in the colonial context, Eisner spent extended periods of time in Pygmy camps, transcribed legends, wrote ethnographic notes and brought up three orphaned Pygmy babies during their early life within a network of "mothers". After Putnam destroyed almost everything he had built before he died in l953, Eisner salvaged the camp now named Epulu and published a ghostwritten autobiography that both described and distorted her experiences in the forest. Celebrities, tourists, game hunters and art collectors came there for first-hand experience of the rainforest and the Pygmies of the area: among them, Colin Turnbull who...