Josephine
Baker and LA Revue Negre : Paul Colin's Lithographs of Le Tumulte
Noir in Paris, 1927 by Paul Colin (Illustrator), Karen
C.C. Dalton, Henry Louis Gates
Josephine Baker, the Jazz Age, African-American
performers in 1920s Paris--all are vividly captured in French
artist Paul Colin's limited-edition portfolio of 45 lithographs
titled "Le Tumulte noir". First published in 1927,
Colin's work evokes in brilliant colors and energetic lines the
uproar black Americans created in music and dance in Paris after
the First World War. 61 illustrations, 46 in color.
When graphic designer Paul Colin published a
limited edition of lithographs he'd made of dancer Josephine Baker
and her revue in Paris in 1927, the French fascination with
American jazz musicians and dancers was at its peak--and the 500
hand-colored copies quickly sold out. The 45 lithographs collected
under the title Le Tumulte Noir (the book's notes list
uproar, frenzy, sensation, brouhaha, and craze among the possible
translations for the word tumulte) include a dynamic sketch
of Baker in her famous banana skirt, a chalklike drawing of a jazz
band in full swing, a feather-bedecked woman dancing in the rain,
an interracial flapper couple kicking up their heels, and other
images that capture the joie de vivre of the era. Henry Louis
Gates Jr. introduces this edition of the lithographs with an essay
that reminds readers of the haven African Americans found in
France at a time when overt racism and bigotry were rampant in the
United States. He then maps the wild success the new musical form
jazz, and its beloved interpreter Baker, achieved there. Colin's
lithographs are faithfully reproduced in the same size and
vertical orientation of the original edition with just the three
colors he employed, the original title page, and Baker's own
handwritten forward to the work.
Ragtime
Tumpie by Alan Schroeder, Bernie Fuchs (Illustrator)
"Stunningly illustrated and as joyful as
St. Louis jazz, (this) 'fictional account' of an incident in the
childhood of the flamboyant and legendary entertainer Josephine
Baker resonates with the sights and colors of the
turn-of-the-century era it describes. . . . Irresistible."-- Publishers
Weekly
Josephine
Baker by Alan Schroeder, Nathan I. Huggins (Editor)
Biography of the black American singer and
dancer who achieved fame in Paris in the 1920s and was awarded the
French Legion of Honor for her work during World War II.
