Portraits of the Harlem Renaissance

Thanks to Carl Van Vechten, we have glorious colour photographs of all the leading Black intellectuals and artists of the 1930s to the 1960s. A wealthy white patron of Black art, Van Vechten was a controversial figure during his lifetime and remains so today. There is no denying, however, that he helped to bring world…

Before Pollock Saw Her Work, A Ukrainian Woman Pioneered Drip Painting

Here’s the myth: alcoholic brooding genius Jackson Pollock assesses a virgin canvas as it lays prone on the ground. Then he flings, hurls, splashes, and drips paint all over it, creating a vigorous new language of art – the drip technique. Life Magazine swooned, “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” The…

She was the Queen of the Cakewalk and the Most Famous Black Woman of the Gilded Age

In 1912, Aida Overton Walker stood at the top of the stairs at the Victoria Theater about to make her entrance as the titular role in the play Salomé. By then, the Salomé craze was mostly over, but the role still had plenty of allure. At a time when women had few rights and little…

Once Upon a Time in Taiwan…

Unless you are Taiwanese, you probably don’t know that Taiwan is inhabited by indigenous Pacific Islanders. Currently, there are 16 recognized tribes on the island, comprising 2.4% of Taiwan’s population of 23 million people, comparable to the native population in the United States (2%). Archeological evidence shows that indigenous people have been on Taiwan for…

The Black Aerialist Who Dazzled Gilded Age Paris

A diminutive Black woman hung upside down from a trapeze as two men pushed and shoved a 200 pound cannon to the center of the circus ring. She grasped a chain on the cannon and hung it on a hook held between her teeth. At a signal, she was hoisted aloft. The audience watched with…

Collector’s Item du Jour: Japanese Matchbox Art of the 1920s

In the 1920s and 1930s, matchboxes in Japan were a miniature billboard in the palm of your hand, promising a glamorous modern life of smoky bars, marcelled hair, and nude women entwined around giant goblets of wine. Produced with a traditional woodblock, the artwork showed influences from Bauhaus and Expressionism, making them a fascinating blend…

Behind the Curtain of the 1940s Chinatown Nightclubs that Shattered Asian Stereotypes

Picture a night out in 1940s San Francisco. You’re in a glamorous nightclub with a floorshow. A sequined dancer does a pas de bourrée on her toes while her tuxedoed partner wows the crowd with multiple drop splits. Then a singer with a warm bluesy voice belts Some of These Days. Finally, a nude dancer…

Her Comics were Everything Jim Crow America Never Wanted Black Women to Be

In the comic strip Torchy Brown from Dixie to Harlem, a spunky Black teenager leaves her Mississippi home for the bright lights of Harlem. She’s glamorous, ambitious, clever, and so self-assured that when she sees a sign pointing one way for COLORED and another way for WHITE, her response is, “I’ll just pretend I can’t…

The Suffragette Who Turned British Society Ladies Into Greek Goddesses

Before Polaroids and Kodak colour, before we could snap a selfie and pass it through a colour filter with a click of a button, there was Vivex. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. The Vivex colour process was produced in just one British factory that shut down at the start of World…

The Maximalist Hippies Who Brought Drag to the Mainstream

On New Year’s Eve in 1969, drag as we know it came kicking and screaming into the world. Just before the midnight movie at the Pagoda Palace, the raucous sounds of Offenbach’s can-can crackled over the speaker system. Out sprang a chaotic kick-line of queers in ragged vintage dresses with glitter in their beards and…