art

Exhibition Spotlight: Brilliant Exiles

Josephine Baker est aux Folies-Bergère. Lithograph, 1936. ByMichel Gyarmathy (1908-1996).

Happy belated birthday Josephine Baker! The singer, dancer, and actor who captivated Paris in the 1920s was born 118 years ago this week, on June 3, 1906.

Baker was but one of many innovative and creative American women who moved to Paris in the early 20th century seeking personal autonomy along with professional agency and success.

Some of these “brilliant exiles” are profiled in the new National Portrait Gallery exhibition by the same name, “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939.” The exhibition is open through February 23, 2025.

Loïs Mailou Jones 1905-1998. Charcoal and chalk on textured paper, c. 1940. By Céline Tabary (1908-1993) .

Gertrude Stein 1874-1946. Oil on canvas, 1905-6. By Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

The show is made up of nearly 80 works of art, mostly in the form of portraits. The portraits are of, and sometimes also by these Americans who shifted and elevated the Paris culture through literature, visual, arts, dance, drama, and philosophy.

Portraiture has a way of annunciating identity in a more evocative way than even the written word can. This exhibition does that in a simple way, letting the paintings speak for themselves.

Baker, like the other American women featured in the exhibition, did not leave the U.S. and land in Paris by accident or coincidence. Crushing legal and social limitations in the U.S. left little room for freedom expression for independent and talented women. Restrictions were based not on just gender, but sexuality, race, economic stratifications, and politics. Paris was not a panacea for all U.S. societal ills, but the artistic climate offered more independence, agency, and freedom to an extent that, for these women, the U.S. could not compare.

Mercedes de Acosta 1893-1968. Oil on canvas, 1923. By Abram Poole (1882-1961).

Baker herself moved to Paris in 1925. She did return to the U.S. for short stints in theatrical productions, and more extensively to lend her aid to the cresting civil rights movements in the 1960s. But by then she was a Parisian through and through, having gained French citizenship way back in 1937. Baker died in Paris, passing away in her sleep on April 12, 1975, just days after performing in a show marking her 50th year of her Paris debut.

This exhibitions is about more than Baker herself. The portraits that make up the show give a luminescent view into the personality, and dare I say, aura, of the people captured. This is high recommend to visit before the show closes in February of 2025!

This and all Exhibition Spotlights are brought to you by our wonderful Patrons. Patrons get monthly insight into new and upcoming museum exhibitions, DC history posts, photographs not shown anywhere else, and more. If you like this post, there’s way more at Patreon.com/AttucksAdams! Memberships start at just $3/month.

In Exaltation of Flowers: Rose- Geranium; Petunia-Caladium-Budleya; and Golden-Banded Lily-Violets. Katharine Nash Rhoades 1885-1965. Marion H. Beckett 1886-1949. Mercedes de Cordoba Carles 1879-1963. Tempera and gold leaf on canvas, 1910-13. By Edward Steichen(1879-1973).

Zero Hunger Mural

Completed earlier this summer, this 12 storey tall mural in downtown DC's eastern end is one in a series to address the issue of global hunger.

Lola Goce is a Spanish artist with works all over the world. Goce completed this mural weeks ago to aid in bringing awareness to the issue of global hunger under the asupices of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Zero Hunger is also theme of the WFP intiiative. 

In the DC mural, Goce was inspired by women who provide food to their families & communities, especially women who are food entrepreneurs and farmers. 

The canvas is very unique but utilitarian structure: an air vent shaft for the underground portion of interstate 395 which runs in a tunnel beneath 3rd Street NW.

Additional murals are already or will be painted in Houston, Oakland, Battle Creek MI, New Orleans, and New York. The DC mural is located at the corner of 3rd and H Streets NW. 

Patreon Preview: National Native American Veterans Memorial

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One characteristic of the National Mall I really appreciate is that there are dozens of smaller spots among the museums and large memorials that end up being excellent stages for more intimate spaces. Whether that space is used as a farmers market like the one hosted next to the USDA or a public garden like Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian Castle, there are pockets of land available for new additions to the living, civic work of art that is the National Mall.

The newly opened National Native American Veterans Memorial is in one of those spaces… (con’t)

Read more on our Patreon page including more than a dozen images: patreon.com/attucskadams.

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Video: Two Minutes at "In America"

Capturing the quiet sounds and remarkable images of Suzanne Firstenberg's "In America.”

The installation honors the, to date, 225,000 Americans who have died from covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. Each of the individual flags represents an individual person who has passed away from covid-19. Some flags have been planted by relatives of those who passed. Others were placed by Suzanne herself, by a cast of volunteers, or visitors to the memorial.

This installation is planned to run from October 23 - November 6, 2020. It’s located near the DC Armory and RFK Stadium. The closest address is 1900 East Capitol Street NE, for the adjacent parking lot.

For more information on the artist and installation, visit suzannefirstenberg.com.