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Frédéric Bazille's "Young Woman with Peonies"
Frédéric Bazille’s “Young Woman with Peonies.”Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, courtesy of National Gallery of Art
Lifestyle

#BlackGirlMagic on display in Harlem art retrospective

By
Barbara Hoffman
Published Nov. 2, 2018, 6:35 p.m. ET

Enough about the naked white prostitute in Manet’s 1863 masterpiece, “Olympia”: What’s with the black maid in the pink dress, hovering in the corner?

Manet’s “Olympia” was the inspiration for the new exhibit.Corbis via Getty Images

Denise Murrell was determined to find out. Not only did the Harlem native track down who that maid was (more on that later), but her 2013 dissertation on the subject has been turned into a sumptuous art show: “Posing Modernity: The Black Model From Manet and Matisse to Today.”

Now at Columbia University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts in Harlem — whose jazz clubs left a lasting impression on that visiting Impressionist, Matisse — are 100 paintings, photos, sculptures and prints on loan from collections around the world.

Some of the loveliest paintings here are by Frédéric Bazille, whose short but brilliant career — he died fighting in the Franco-Prussian war, at 28 — yielded both “Young Woman With Peonies” and “La Toilette,” with its bare-breasted white and black beauties. Here, too, is Manet’s painting of Jeanne Duval, mistress and muse to poet Charles Baudelaire — and the reason why the poet’s mother disinherited him. And then there are Degas’ lively pastels of Miss La La, the circus star famed for holding a small cannon in her teeth that fired away while she swung on a trapeze.

William H. Johnson's "Portrait of Woman with Blue and White Striped Blouse," circa 1940–42.
William H. Johnson’s “Portrait of Woman with Blue and White Striped Blouse,” circa 1940–42.Gift of the Harmon Foundation, image courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Some of the most exciting works are by black contemporary artists who put their own spin on things. Aimé Mpane’s “Olympia II” (2013) neatly reverses the roles of the original, giving us a sexy black nude and a discreet white maid.

So who was Manet’s model? As Murrell discovered, she was a working-class woman named Laure. Like other newly freed blacks in 19th-century Paris, she lived in the north end of the city, where rents were low — a reason why artists were drawn there, too. Manet thought enough of Laure to paint her three times in one year. Two of those works are here, but “Olympia” never made it to Harlem with them.

It remains in Paris’ Musée d’Orsay, which is where this show is headed after it closes here.

“Posing Modernity: The Black Model From Manet and Matisse to Today,” through Feb. 10 at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, 615 W. 129th St. Free. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Friday, noon to 8 p.m.