PORTRAIT OF THE INIMITABLE
Josephine Baker
• 1
Richmond BARTHÉ (1901-1989) Josephine Baker, 1951 bronze bust mounted on marble base 12 x 6 x 12 inches (sculpture) 6 x 4 x 4 inches (base) bears two labels, one internal to the bronze and another on bottom of base; likely foundry internal communiqué identifying artist Provenance: Louis Ehrlich to Phil Rubin to Jim Belinky, MI Exhibited: Richmond Barthé: The Seeker, Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art, 2010-2011. Detroit Institute of Art, General Motors Center for African American Art, August 2014-November 2019; then traveled to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art with an exhibition called Dance! American Art 1830-1960, 2016. Literature: Barthé: A Life in Sculpture, Margaret Rose Vendryes, 2008, University Press of Mississippi; fig. 3.12, p. 66. This image of Josephine Baker is presumed to be unique; there has been no evidence of another casting which includes the ponytail, and when the casts were removed from Modern Art Foundry there was no evidence of the ponytail, which was apparently lost or destroyed.
2 •
• 3
PORTRAIT OF THE INIMITABLE
Josephine Baker
by Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes, noted artist, curator, art scholar, and author of Barthé, A Life in Sculpture, 2008
4 •
F
reda Josephine McDonald (1906-1975) was a radical black feminist before that category existed. By the age of fifteen, she had left the second of two husbands keeping the Anglo-Saxon surname Baker even though there were two more marriages in her future. James Richmond Barthé, gay and a confirmed bachelor, was her contemporary. They probably knew of each other, but were personally unacquainted. Both grew up impacted by systemic racism, which fueled a resolute determination to participte in racism undoing. Towards that goal, both dropped out of segregated schools in their early teens with every intention of sharpening their innate artistic skills. Baker’s parents, who were working-class poor in St. Louis, hired her out as a live-in maid at 7 yrs. old. Barthé, too, spent many years in domestic service to a New Orleans family. Unlike Baker, Barthé was able to improve his literacy with access to his employer’s library. Baker was essentially illiterate until 1919 when blues singer, Clara Smith, began tutoring her during their time together with the Dixie Steppers. Barthé eventually left New Orleans for art school in Chicago. Baker left St. Louis for the Paris stage. Both artists were successful because their talent and drive was extraordinary and they worked exceptionally hard.
Photo credit: Josephine Baker, c. 1951; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
• 5
Baker’s extraordinarily flexible, svelte brown body became her professional currency. Going against the grain of race uplift in the US, Baker immigrated to France, bared her breasts, flaunted her African descent, and danced and sang her way to fame and fortune. In the Black Womanhood exhibition catalog (where Baker is cited twenty-one times), Ayo Abiétou Coly, records how Baker’s rise in fame coincided with the popularity in France of postcards that circulated to perpetuate racist views of Africans as primitive. Within a few appearances in 1925, word spread of Baker’s ‘Fatou’ in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées. Through Fatou, Baker imported US jazz as both rousing music and stirring dance to Paris. [figure 1] The most vibrant
record of this chapter in her life is Paul Colin’s print portfolio Le Tumulte noir. Colin captured the fresh and racy look of Jazz which was the sound of African America. European audiences were excited by the novelty of native black performers who were also modern, urban dwellers. Baker became a shooting star who, by 1927, was commanding the highest income for a performer in Europe and, as the Internet overload of images proclaims, among the most photographed celebrities of her era. She was also being managed by then and transformed into a marketable brand by Giuseppe “Pepito” di Abatino (1898-1936) with whom she created a line of cosmetic products including Bakerskin tanning lotion, and Bakerfix hair pomade. [figure 2]
Figure 1, Paul Colin, 1925. La Revue Negre poster, 46-1/8 x 61-5/8 inches. Original run printed by H. Chachoin, Paris. 6 •
Figure 2, Bakerfix retailer’s sign, c. 1926; painted plaster, 12 x 10-14 inches. Not surprisingly, these products never made it the US. Skincare in particular, at least for black women, was dominated by products to lighten and brighten their skin. Further, the idea that a white woman would emulate even a famous black woman was unthinkable. But, Parisian fans attempted to acquire Baker’s look by using her products. Baker blacken her skin to counter harsh stage lighting and powdered it for dimmer, ambient café lights. Her laminated hair went beyond the popular marcel wave to a glistening, immobile cap that could withstand gale winds. Unlike in the US where vaudeville and cabaret were
anathema to respectable blacks, Parisian society paid to see Baker’s clowning and erotic choreography performed in steamy jungle settings populated by ‘real’ Africans. She was a New Negro, completely out of step with the established movement, but ‘new’ just the same. Baker’s unapologetic sexuality, counter to New Negro efforts to displace such stereotypes, was encouraged by French audiences while black leaders, like W.E.B. DuBois, openly condemned public figures who undermined moral codes and tarnished hard-earned good opinions of white allies.
• 7
In his Pulitzer prize biography, The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart mentions Baker only once in the chapter on “Beauty or Propaganda?” In his sage opinion, Baker stood as an example of “Black art as a kind of Trojan Horse intervention in White cultural spaces.” Without question, she was both beauty and propaganda. If Baker could change the minds of white audiences about the value of her black talent, perhaps she could change their minds about the value of black lives overall. Barthé’s sculpture is an excellent example of Stewart’s Trojan Horse because pleasure derived from encounters with, and acquisition of, his black figures by white viewers defused prejudices against his own blackness and perhaps also that of others. Locke argued that “the most fertile field for the Negro Renaissance was in an integrated world of culture.” Barthé and Baker were aligned with Locke’s thinking. They entered the white entertainment arena to introduce ill-informed audiences to black artistic excellence. Regrettably, both were also accused of perpetuating negative black stereotypes, and for the same reason: their sexually-charged art. When it came to the black body beautiful, these two artists were their era’s black Avant Garde. How is it that they were not friends? During Barthé’s first visit to Paris in 1934, Baker was on leave from the stage. That year, Zouzou (directed by Marc Allégret)
was released making Baker the first black woman to star in an integrated feature film. Skillfully managed by Abatino (who co-wrote the screenplay), the playful Fatou who symbolized the wild Jazz Age was replaced by Zouzou, a character more suitable for sophisticated Parisian bourgeois audiences. As an actress, no – a star – Baker was more easily consumed by her admirers. When she returned to the cabaret stage, advertisements for her performances at the Folies-Bergère and the Casino de Paris show Baker transformed into a picture of elegance – poised, manicured, and strutting haute couture. Approaching thirty, her voice was also being trained. This path toward refinement was also traveled by Barthé when, at twenty-five, he entered the Art Institute of Chicago School to learn how to paint. How is it that their paths did not cross? Barthé did meet Senegalese dancer François Benga during that 1934 stay in Paris. Benga once performed in Baker’s by then infamous bananaskirt act and had since become a solo dancing sensation. With Barthé’s focus on the male figure in motion, Benga’s performance made a strong impression. Within a year of Barthé’s return to Manhattan, Benga’s svelte black body was lifted off the ‘Feral Benga’ menu (the dancer’s cabaret-restaurant on Rue de Tilsitt) to become the sculptor’s signature figure. [figure 3]
8 •
Figure 3, Richmond BarthĂŠ, Feral Benga, 1934; cast in 1937; 18-1/2 inches high. The collection of Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan.
• 9
Figure 4, Alexander Calder, Josephine Baker (III) Paris, c. 1927; steel wire, 39 x 223/8 x 9-3/4 inches. Collection of MOMA, NY; object number 841.1966.
Figure 6, Negrophilia: Avant Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s, Petrine Archer-Straw, London : Thames & Hudson, 2000.
10 •
Unlike artists who pictured Baker during her “primitivist” early career, Barthé waited for the moment when she revealed herself as more than an entertainer. He pictured her as she was when he finally saw her on stage in 1951 and learned about her activism in support of equal civil rights. They shared a preference for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pro-integration, non-violent protest movement over Malcolm X’s militant, separatist Black Power credo. Barthé saw a striking, mature woman with a purpose that reached well beyond her own celebrity. Baker’s legacy is marked by the diversity of visual artists she inspired. Among them Alexander Calder, Paul Colin, Jean Dunand, Al Hirschfeld, Andy Warhol, Hassan Musa, and Beyoncé Knowles who were all moved by her stage persona. [figure 4] In fact, this artist author, expressed admiration for both Barthé’s portrait and its commercial model in 2013. [figure 5] Baker’s story has a complexity and
sparkle that prompted biographies, film documentaries, and a 2005 docudrama starring Lynn Whitfield. References to her career are inevitably included in scores of studies on race relations and histories of 20th-century black life. One of the most telling inclusions is heralded on the cover of Petrine Archer-Straw’s book, Negrophilia: Avante-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s (2000) where Baker sits, in a sequined leotard flashing her beguiling overbite smile, stroking her pet Chiquita. [figure 6] In the 2018 documentary, Josephine Baker: The Story of an Awakening, Baker is fully remembered in all her diversity as the political, social, and artistic revolutionary who married four husbands, engaged in multiple affairs without race or gender discrimination, and, in doing so, subverted stereotypes of blacks and women. Queer communities now count both Barthé and Baker as rainbow coalition pioneers. Biographer, Phyllis Rose, quotes Baker as declaring that “art is an elastic sort of love” as she lived her art to the fullest.
• 11
Baker’s story appears more compelling and complex compared to Barthé’s because so much of it was made public. But, the catalyst for this essay is Barthé’s 1951 portrait of Josephine Baker which was created during an episodic chapter in both the sculptor’s and the performer’s career. The bronze head, with a partial spread of shoulders, is just short of life-size but appears larger by calling to mind Baker’s petite, seductive body further through a flirtatious gesture. Like her many fans, Barthé was captivated by Baker’s performance, but in retrospect, they actually had a lot in common not the least of which was their expatriate status. Building a reputation that would bring her triumphantly back to the US in 1951 took decades of work. Baker’s 1936 US tour with the Ziegfeld Follies, left critics and audiences disappointed with her performances as much as she was disappointed to find Jim Crow alive and well. One failed tour in a tragically racist nation was not enough to stop Josephine Baker. Within a
year of returning to Paris, she had reinvented her stage persona once more at the Folie Bergère, married a wealthy Jewish Parisian, and officially became a French national. Then, in 1947, Baker was back in NYC at The Majestic headlining in a show that sadly was another box office flop. But, the visit itself was a success because Baker found an enthusiastic audience in Fisk University students who were eager to hear her speak about ending racial segregation. Baker had always enjoyed young people. After miscarrying more than one pregnancy, her wish to have a measurable impact on the future led Baker to create a family through adoption. That same year, she purchased Château des Milandes, an imposing stone castle in the Dordogne region of southwestern France (currently a tourist attraction complete with Baker mannequins). Soon thereafter, twelve children from across the globe became her Rainbow Tribe to show the world that integration was necessary to an equitable, fulfilling life.
12 •
Figure 5, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Josephine (Baker) - Haiti, Black Gold Series, 2013; oil on canvas, 18 x 18 x 2-1/5 inches. Collection of Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, NY. Photograph courtesy of the artist
• 13
Barthé’s 1947 was also a revelation. His solo exhibition of celebrity portraits, The Theater in Sculpture, at the Grand Central Art Galleries in midtown Manhattan was a tour de force display of his ability to capture a likeness that ended with most of the work going into storage. It was essentially the equivalent of a box office flop. This was a turning point for Barthé as it was for Baker, a sign that his practice needed a reboot. By that time, Barthé’s plans were already in place to emigrate to Jamaica in order to paint. In fact, by 1951, many believed that he had already left New York for good. But, Barthé never fully severed his ties with the city after purchasing a modest house set back from a country road running through Colgate, a hamlet just outside of Ocho Rios. Struggling with reoccurring health challenges, both mental and physical, the quiet remove of this British West Indies island, without electricity or telephone service, held a promise of renewal for Barthé’s body and his art. To finance this relocation, he accepted his largest and most ambitious public art commission for
monumental figures of Haitian revolution heroes Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jacques Dessalines to be placed in the Champs de Mars in Port-au-Prince. The commission took over his studio practice for five years. Before the Haitian monuments were installed in 1954, only a few small works were executed. The fine head of Josephine Baker was among them. Barthé usually exhibited work, skillfully painted to resemble bronze, which he cast himself in plaster. If a piece found favor, the collector would pay Barthé and the foundry to have it cast in real bronze. The Baker portrait was cast in June of 1951 at Modern Art Foundry in Long Island City, NY. The Strand show opened on March 2 only four months earlier. The portrait was probably commissioned by Louis Ehrlich, a former lover who remained a patron and benefactor throughout Barthé’s life. Upon his death in 1976, Ehrlich’s life partner, New York designer Phillip H. Rubin, inherited his substantial collection of Barthé sculpture including the head of Josephine Baker.
14 •
• 15
By 1951, Baker used her visibility to shake up systems of segregation in the entertainment world forcing US venues that booked her show to allow blacks to purchase and occupy seats. She was an advocate for the rights of all people to access spaces and opportunities on equal ground. Her ability to draw crowds gave Baker clout that she used without hesitation. She agreed with fellow expatriate, James Baldwin, who famously declared that “artists are here to disturb the peace.” And disturb she did. The caption on one of many photographs of her Strand performance betrays some disappointment in her "dressed-up sex" and "show nothing" new style supported by “45 trunks loaded with a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of costumes.” Newspaper announcements were placed beside more sensational ads to assure attention and ticket sales. [figure 7] But, Barthé recognized the transformation of party girl into elegant black icon upon seeing her perform at The Strand. She was fashion-forward magnificent and esthetically dramatic. She was sculpture in
the flesh with hair that defied gravity. A black woman’s hair is her crown. It is without a doubt an essential element of self-presentation. In 1951, Baker nailed it with her hairstyle. The stacked bouffant echoed both Africa and midcentury modernity. Barthé, taken with the 1930’s Africart Deco aesthetic, modeled African ‘types’ with a particular focus on distinctive hairstyles. [figure 8] The dynamic profile of the Mangbetu woman with her shaped head and long hair woven into basketry to produce a sweeping, halo-like up do became the identifying mark of her people. Barthé’s head of Baker not only allows her boldly modern coiffure to dominate and create visual and literal balance, but continues my analogy with averted gaze and pursed lips that record the modesty and humility expected of Mangbetu women. But, by 1951, Baker was anything but modest. The facial gesture, read from another angle, speaks of defiance, skepticism, perhaps even disgust with the immoral and unethical treatment of black people in the United States of America.
Photo credit: Josephine baker backstage at a performance c. 1951, Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives)
16 •
• 17
Unfortunately, that reading becomes accurate as Baker’s visit turned dark. One evening after the show, she criticized the management of the famous Stork Club for racist discrimination when they refused to serve her party and also called out syndicated gossip columnist Walter Winchell (who witnessed her storming out) for not standing up for her. Winchell responded in the morning paper by labeling Baker a Communist, which, given the era’s Red Scare sentiments, predictably ended her tour. Baker would not sing before a US audience again despite rave reviews, a parade in Harlem, and being named the 1951 NAACP Woman of the Year. With resignation, Baker told historian Henry Louis Gates during a 1973 interview that no matter how she tried to breathe new life into their relationship, she was always “suffocating” in the United States. Barthé had faith that the sea air and island life represented a needed restorative.
He exchanged a life of discrimination as a black minority in the US for what he believed would be one as a member of the black majority in Jamaica. He left behind the growing civil rights movement that Baker returned to specifically to participate in the 1963 March on Washington where she declared it to be “the happiest day” of her life. While in Jamaica, The Seeker, a small standing figure completed that same year, offered a glimpse into Barthé’s life. This figure, with its deliberately smooth surfaces and elongated proportions, he described as autobiographical with “a spiritual quality and a dignity... like man on another plane.” At 62, Barthé was more aware of himself as the slower pace and sustained isolation of his island home liberated his art. His renewed appreciation of Africa, experienced in Jamaica, inspired Barthé to begin again sculpting black people.
18 •
Figure 7, Newspaper advertisement for Baker’s show at the Strand.
Figure 8, Richmond Barthé, African Woman, c. 1934; painted plaster on wood base, 8-1/4 x 4-3/4 x 4-1/2 inches. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The John Axelrod Collection—Frank B. Bemis Fund, Charles H. Bayley Fund, and The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection (2011.1804) © Richmond Barthé Trust; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
• 19
Like the African trickster orisha Eshu, Baker depended on entrenched black stereotypes for camouflage when working as an informant for the French Resistance during WWII. Twelve years later, she returned to speak at the March on Washington in her heavily decorated French military uniform. This would be Baker’s final visit to her birthplace. France named her a Chevalier of the Legion d’honeur, awarded her the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Resistance with Rosette, and honored Baker with full French military honors at her burial in 1975. The year Josephine Baker died, Barthé
was interviewed by biographer Marcia Mathews. He spoke of his desire to live long enough to see all races live together in peace. A desire Baker shared. Barthé reiterated what he wrote in a 1966 letter, that “someday when I am gone, someone may discover some beauty in my work that may add some beauty to their lives.” As it was with Baker, he shouldered racism with dignity treating people as individuals without prejudice and believed that beauty could change bad outlooks for the better. Sculptor and performer were brazenly ahead of their time. Baker and Barthé believed their work to be an enduring and true reflection of black brilliance. And they were right. s
Photo credit: Richmond Barthé, c. 1945; Harmon Foundation, courtesy of Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes
20 •
• 21
Installation shots while on loan at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Courtesy of Jim Belinky, MI.
22 •
Installation shots from the exhibition, Dance: American Art 1830-1960, which was held at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR, 2016; Detroit Institute of Arts, 2016; Courtesy of Jim Belinky, MI.
• 23
Photo: Anthony Barboza
Margaret Rose Vendryes is an art historian, visual artist, and curator. She received her BA in fine arts from Amherst College, MA in art history from Tulane University, and Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University. She taught at Princeton University and Amherst College before entering the faculty at York College & The Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she received tenure in 2006. Vendryes is currently Chairperson of the Department of Performing and Fine Arts and Director of the Fine Arts Gallery at York College. Among several honors, Vendryes held an American Association of University Women Fellowship and was a Scholarin-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2008, University Press of Mississippi published Vendryes’ book Barthé, A Life in Sculpture, the first comprehensive monograph on the late African American sculptor Richmond Barthé. Also, recognized for her African Diva Project, a painting series that merges African masks with LP cover images for Black soloists, AD Project paintings have been presented in solo and group exhibitions since 2009. Visit her website: www.mrvendryes.com
24 •
• 25
BLACK ART AUCTION ©2021 26 •