La Baker Redux

The perennial interest in our first black international star seems to be on an uptick again. Huffington Post put this style feature-ette about Josephine Baker up today–with a very glossed Continue reading →

Out Of Africa

Reblogged from sartorial-revenge.com: Sophie Vlaming by Hans van Brakel for Marie Claire Netherlands June 2013 Eternal Afrochic. The trend launched early in the 20th century that I research remains in Continue reading →

Egyptomania…encore!

I didn’t have the chance to discuss this photograph of Anna May Wong wearing a hat referencing the one worn by Neferetiti in her famous portrait bust in my recent Continue reading →

An Evening With Edward Kennedy Ellington

Reblogged from Commentaries on the Times:  Duke’s Satorial Style Was as Elegant as his Music On April 29, 1999, the centennial of the birth of  Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, I sat Continue reading →

Daughters of the Dust

I recently gave a talk at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts about the film Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash. It is an amazing film – it Continue reading →

Family histories and interwar black history

Reblogged from Drawing over the Colour Line: Geographies of art and cosmopolitan politics in London, 1919 – 1939: As our recent blog post shows, our contact with Nyay Bhushan, the Continue reading →

Black Ops

My CAA talk went very well according to the feedback that I received. I focused on how shadows assumed a new expressive role as a racial metaphor in modernist photography. Continue reading →

Shadows take on a life of their own in the jazz age

Anyone trying to study the role of shadow in visual representation will not find much. Victor Stoichita and Michael Baxandall have written books on the topic, plus a few articles Continue reading →

In praise of shadows…

It’s CAA time and I am participating in a panel called “Photography and Race.” My talk is about race and modernism in interwar photography. One key phenomenon that I have Continue reading →

Happy New Year!

This is a portrait of the actress Anna May Wong in tuxedo drag taken by Carl Van Vecthen in 1932. This image is the cornerstone of the introduction to Afrochic, Continue reading →