Publication was the record-keeper

NEW ORLEANS, LA (PNAN) – “Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club” goes on view Friday, February 10, 2023 at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The exhibition explores the connection between African American artist Jacob Lawrence and his contemporaries based in the Global South through the Nigerian publication, Black Orpheus.

The exhibition features over 125 objects, including Lawrence’s little-known 1964-65 Nigeria series, works by the artists featured in the literary journal, archival images, videos, and letters.

The core of the exhibition centers on the Mbari arts which also had galleries in Lagos, Ibadan and Osogbo, Nigeria, presenting the work of many of these artists such as, Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Uche Okeke, Malangantana Ngwenya, Jacob Afolabi, Colette Oluwabamise Omogbai, Francis Newton Souza, Twins Seven-Seven, Wilson Tibério, Genaro de Carvalho, Agnaldo Manoel dos Santos, Susanne Wenger, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Demas Nwoko, and Avinash Chandra.

Additionally the exhibit presents highlights from the culture magazine Black Orpheus (1957–67). The publication was one of the main vehicles for circulating fictional and non-fictional writings by African and African Diaspora writers.

About

Black Orpheus was a groundbreaking ‘journal of African and Afro-American literature’ that began publication in Nigeria in 1957. Its founding editor was the university teacher Ulli Beier, and it was edited, among others, by Wole Soyinka and the South African writer Es’kia Mphahlele. Black Orpheus published poetry, art, fiction, literary criticism and commentary, and took inspiration from older African artistic and literary traditions. Other contributors and editors, including Léopold Senghor, Camara Laye, Andrew Salkey and Léon Damas, reflected its Pan-African reach and ability to attract writers of distinction. Image is the Cover of the literary magazine from 1958-59.