Le Modele Noir

The great exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay is not only about artists’ models of African ancestry, but a whole bunch of other individuals including political figures like  Toussaint L’Ouverture,   writer Alexandre Dumas,  actor Jeanne Duval, comic  Chocolat, dancer  Josephine Baker and surrealist Ady Fidelin.  The central focus however is on the French Caribbean woman who posed for the attendant in Manet’s so-celebrated Olympia, presenting an admirer’s bouquet to the naked courtesan.  And who has now been identified – although only by first name, alas, thanks to a note by Manet ‘Laure / 11 rue de Vintimille’.

In the exhibition too is a fine array of bronze busts by Charles Cordier, conceived as anthropological/ethnic examples but before casting modelled in clay from actual women and men in Paris.  As ever, it’s the critical mass of images rather than the single examples that enables the exhibition to present a mixed rather than monochrome picture of nineteenth century French society – albeit chiefly, it appears, resident in the northern areas of Paris around the places de Clichy and Pigalle, or employed as nannies for well-to-do families in more fashionable quartiers    

There is a fine selection of images of the acrobat known as Miss LaLa - real name Olga Albertina Brown - and her performance troupe:

The exhibition title The Black Model from Gericault to Matisse indicates the chronological sweep from 1800 to 1950,  but in fact the exhibits continue beyond this, featuring several recent responses to Olympia that reverse the white and black figures, such as Larry Rivers’ mixed media ‘I like Olympia in Black Face 1970, complete with white and black cats  :

Plus  Aime Mpane’s tile work Olympia II 2013 which visually imprisons the pair as if behind a grille and places a large skull within the flower bouquet.    Seen alongside Gauguin’s 1891 copy,  these iterations underline the continuing impact of the original.   One would like to see similar works by contemporary female artists of African heritage.

Many more images in the substantial catalogue published by Flammarion, which also includes a list of 38 dark-skinned male and female models registered with the Ecole des Beauz-Arts and other ateliers, 1901-1933  with names, addresses and brief descriptions (negre / noir / type abyssin / mulatresse / belle gorge etc)