Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today

by Denise Murrell

An ambitious and revelatory investigation of the black female figure in modern art, tracing the legacy of Manet through to contemporary art

This revelatory study investigates how changing modes of representing the black female figure were foundational to the development of modern art. Posing Modernity examines the legacy of Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), arguing that this radical painting marked a fitfully evolving shift toward modernist portrayals of the black figure as an active participant in everyday life rather than as an exotic “other.” Denise Murrell explores the little-known interfaces between the avant-gardists of nineteenth-century Paris and the post-abolition community of free black Parisians. She traces the impact of Manet’s reconsideration of the black model into the twentieth century and across the Atlantic, where Henri Matisse visited Harlem jazz clubs and later produced transformative portraits of black dancers as icons of modern beauty. These and other works by the artist are set in dialogue with the urbane “New Negro” portraiture style with which Harlem Renaissance artists including Charles Alston and Laura Wheeler Waring defied racial stereotypes. The book concludes with a look at how Manet’s and Matisse’s depictions influenced Romare Bearden and continue to reverberate in the work of such global contemporary artists as Faith Ringgold, Aimé Mpane, Maud Sulter, and Mickalene Thomas, who draw on art history to explore its multiple voices.
 
Featuring over 175 illustrations and profiles of several models, Posing Modernity illuminates long-obscured figures and proposes that a history of modernism cannot be complete until it examines the vital role of the black female muse within it.

Published in association with the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University in the City of New York

Exhibition Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York
(10/24/18–02/10/19) Musée d ’ Orsay
(03/25/19–07/14/19)

Genres: Art

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 13, 2018

Reviews

[A YOGAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Denise Murrells Werk ist eine bahnbrechende kunsthistorische Neubewertung, die das schwarze Modell aus dem Schatten der Exotik ins Zentrum der Moderne rückt – von Édouard Manets Olympia bis in die Gegenwart. Murrell zeigt, dass die schwarze Muse nicht Objekt des Blicks, sondern aktive Mitgestalterin der modernen Bildsprache war. Künstler wie Henri Matisse oder Romare Bearden erscheinen hier nicht als isolierte Genies, sondern als Teilnehmer eines transkulturellen Dialogs, der tradierte Stereotype aufbrach.

Die Sichtbarkeit der Muse: Von Paris nach Harlem
Dieses Werk bildet die ästhetische und intellektuelle Brücke einer konsequent kuratierten Bibliothek. Es zeigt, dass kulturelle Selbstbehauptung und intellektueller Widerstand auch im Medium der Malerei stattfanden.
Vom Objekt zum Subjekt: Murrell weist nach, dass moderne Kunst ohne die Präsenz freier schwarzer Pariser im 19. Jahrhundert nicht in ihrer bekannten Form entstanden wäre. Das Modell ist hier keine Staffage, sondern konstitutiver Bestandteil der Moderne.
Transatlantischer Dialog: Der Bogen von den Pariser Avantgarden zu den kulturellen Zentren Harlems macht die frühe globale Vernetzung schwarzer ästhetischer Innovation sichtbar – lange vor der Existenz digitaler Öffentlichkeiten.
Emanzipation des Blicks: Künstlerinnen der Harlem Renaissance und zeitgenössische Positionen wie Mickalene Thomas greifen dieses Erbe auf, um den Blick umzuwenden und die Kontrolle über die eigene Repräsentation zurückzuerlangen.

[Micebyliz]

I had hopes for this book to be a little more down to earth. It was good in many ways, though. Maybe I missed something, since I am not an art student. I understand about the artists themselves, having read a good deal about them, and I understand the times they lived in, particularly the late 19th century and early 20th, but there is so much more that could have been referenced with regard to the women who were models. I was looking for more about their lives, their backgrounds, what they actually said or wanted or felt. It seemed like they were still being used.
I don't understand why the black female body is used in art the way that it was/is. Or, any female body. What is the big deal? Why are there no male bodies all over museums? Is is really necessary to have naked female bodies everywhere?
We are being used and used and used. It never ends.

[Yusei158 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. you honestly don't even need to know manet that much to enjoy this.

[Mills College Library]

704.9424 M9844 2018