Open email to: [email protected] Friday 4th November '22 Subject: Where is the National Gallery's 16th century German art ? Photo: Entrance to Sainsbury Wing Collection 4th Nov '22 You have closed the Sainsbury Wing till 2025, removing the 16th century German art from display, which unlike the Italian works from the same period, have not been rehung throughout the Gallery…what happened to the German works? For the Image of the Black in the National Gallery tour 16th century German art is foundational. The four of the key images and ideas - the Black Queen of Sheba, the Moor’s head, the Black St Maurice, the Black king, - I discuss in the tour have their origin in Germany from around that period. Last month I had to do an Image of the Black tour in the National Gallery to group of visiting German students using photographs as there were no physical works of art to show them. In doing so casting doubt on the National Gallery’s claim to have a ‘world-class collection of paintings in the Western European tradition’ the absence of German 16th century works is an omission, I urge you to correct. From National Gallery Albrecht Dürer Page accessed 4th Nov '22 Specifically, I would ask that you put Dürer back on display, ideally the portrait of his father, failing that any of the Dürer’s works you have. Thank you Michael I. Ohajuru [email protected] Image of the Black in London Galleries PS And while you are at it you could think about completing your collection of 16th century German art by acquiring an Adoration with a Black king and a Black St Maurice - both quinessential figures in 16th century German art . If you haven’t the funds to buy, why not negotiate some long-term loan or swop with a German gallery, they have many examples of both. UPDATE...Reply From National Gallery 8th Nov '22Dear Michael,
Thank you for emailing the National Gallery The Sainsbury Wing is undergoing a major refurbishment for the forthcoming bicentenary of the National Gallery under the NG200 scheme. Please see the link here https://ng200.org.uk/ In preparation for this, all the rooms in the Sainsbury Wing have been decanted. Due to limitations of space, not all the paintings from Sainsbury Wing can be rehung in other parts of the Gallery. Of the works you mentioned, only our fully autograph Dürer 'St Jerome' will go on display. However, some of our early German works have been rehung in rooms 16,17 and 27. From next Wednesday you will also be able to view further German works in room 25 after a rehang in there is complete. For further up-to-date information on painting locations please see our online interactive map: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/floorplans/level-2. Please be assured that I have forwarded all your comments, including those regarding potential purchase or loan of mentioned paintings, to our curatorial team for their consideration. We would like to thank you for your feedback as it helps us evaluate the service we offer. We look forward to welcoming you back to the Gallery soon. Kind regards, Ivan Visitor Information Coordinator The National Gallery Trafalgar Square London WC2N 5DN 020 7747 2885 www.nationalgallery.org.uk
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Open email to: [email protected] Monday, 31 October 2022
Subject: Where is Ronald Moody in 1930 Room and Frank Bowling in 1960 Room? Where are the works Ronald Moody in the 1930 Room and Frank Bowling in the 1960 Room? As two of the earliest Black artists in your collection Moody and Bowling demand a space in Walk Through British Art, if Tate is to meet its declared aim to share art in all its complexity and diversity. Both have been in those rooms but now their absence leaves a big hole in telling the story of the Black presence in British art –Image of the Black in Tate Britain. I fully appreciate that curating demands choices have to made but I would argue that there are some works and/or themes that are core to Tate’s collection, in fact define the collection. Think of the British Museum without the Rosetta Stone or the Louvre without the Mona Lisa or Imperial War Museum without a piece by a war artist. So not to see Ronald Moody’s work in Walk Through British Art in 1930 Room and Frank Bowling’s work in the 1960 Room was deeply disappointing as both are core the story of Black British art in Tate’s collection Moody is the first Black artist’s work in your collection so, his work has to an integral part of the 1930 Room if its hang is to demonstrate Tate Britain’s complexity and diversity. His absence from the room is a hard to understand. I am reduced to discussing the Black presence via John Skeaping’s Akua-Ba having missed the opportunity to discuss the first Black artist in Tate’s collection as his work is in store. For exactly the same aim Bowling’s work should be in the 1960 Room as his white contemporaries such as Bridget Riley and David Hockey both of whom featured in Whitechapel Gallery’s seminal 1965 New Generation exhibition; Bowling was excluded, he reported he was advised by the director ‘England is not yet ready for an artist of colour’. I appreciate that Bowling is included in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation which is fine but as I have argued he was an integral part of the 1960 Room so if this room is to show the ‘complexity and diversity’ you claim then he should be in both spaces. Equally Moody’s work should be put back in the1930 Room. Please let me know your plans to put the works of Moody and Bowling back into Walk Through British Art in order that Tate can show the ‘complexity and diversity’ of its collection. Regards Michael I. Ohajuru [email protected] Image of the Black in London Galleries Update 2nd Nov 2022 Received a positive, prompt response to my tweet annoucing my open emial
Followed by detailed, considered email which included the following......
I hope you will be pleased to hear that Frank Bowling's work will be central to our 1960s galleries. Unfortunately, for conservation reasons, Ronald Moody's work from the 1930s cannot currently be included in our inter-war displays. However, Moody's work will be included in the gallery dedicated to the post-war period with a significant wood carving from our collection. from email from Tate 31 October 2022 Along with an invitation to see the new hang once it is complete in Dec. I will be taking them up on that invite and reporting back in December. Following a talk on the Black Magus: Power and Magnificence in Renaissance Europe a response to Rosa-Johan Uddoh’s monumental procession of Black Magi seen in Breaking Point part of Practice Makes Perfect installation I was asked to name my favourite Adoration I found I couldn’t it! It had be my favourite three Adorations, each a favourite for different reasons. Number ONE Black Magus The Adoration from the V&A’s collection will always be my favourite as it was the one that I began this journey with. It has all the Black Magus attributes – last in line, exotic dress, flamboyant poise and a gold earring. In addition, the four individual fleur-de-lis reflect the creative freedom of Gothic architect - that Gothic freedom is very British - in contrast to the constraints of classic architecture seen in the exact replication of columns. Number TWO Black Magus Paulo Veronese’s 1578 Adoration at the National Gallery its Black Magus has all four attributes of the Black Magus in a large wonderfully rich colourful setting. I love how Veronese uses complementary colours to create a lively, vibrant image, minded of the Impressionism seen in Monet’s Impressionism Sunrise. Number THREE Black Magus
This Adoration by the wonderfully enigmatic Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch from the Met in New York I first came across it in Rosa's work. And even surrounded by all those Black Magi Bosch’s stood out. Demonstrating all the attributes of the Black Magus – the earring, the dress, the pose and his position. Bosch has him standing up right and haughty with his nose in the air with an arrogant distancing look and covered in, almost weighed down by gold. I love it! Twice in the past week I have read that image of the Black Magus has its origins in slavery both times from leading white Western institutions who appear to have only one lens for the observation of Black history - slavery. All Black history leads back to slavery in their eyes. This is wrong. The Black Magus in Adoration images does not have its roots in slavery, The image has a rich and complex history which is rooted in bible study, courtly practice and artistic tradition FIRST TIME... The first time was a piece in the Guardian which included the sensationalist statement: The emergence of a realistically portrayed black character in Renaissance art reflected ….. a seismic shift in global events as European ships, led by Portugal and Spain, explored the Atlantic and established trading – and slaving – outposts on the African coast. The Guardian Jonathan Jones Mon 21 Dec 2020 I was so incensed by this poorly researched and ill-informed piece I wrote a series of tweet of which sought to correct the piece's error. SECOND TIME... The second time was Getty Museum blog post about their exhibition Balthazar A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art (November 19, 2019–February 16, 2020): [I]t would take nearly 1,000 years for European artists to begin representing Balthazar, the youngest of the three kings, as a black man. Why? The explanation can be found through a closer look at the history of this period—specifically, in the rise of the African slave trade in mid-1400s. Getty Museum Blog May 9, 2019 , updated November 19, 2019 No tweet this time to this inaccurate miss-leading statement I will respond in this blog post to the closing sentence of their blog post (sic) We invite your input on this work, our approach, and what we have shared here. I accept that invitation The idea that one of the three Magi could be Black, predates White Western European chattel slavery - the Atlantic trade in enslaved African people dates from the 15th century. Consequently the Black Magus image predates that trade as it is first recorded in the mid 14th century Holy Roman Empire Bohemia. The image was not a response to what the Guardian calls a "seismic shift in events led by slavery"' nor was it as the Getty museum says due "specifically, [to] the rise of the African slave trade in mid-1400s." Its origin is complex, on the one hand rooted in the age old conflict between church and state - Pope and Emperor - on the other what can only be called Renaissance cognitive dissonance as ideas and images became conflated. The Roman theologian Tertullian was the first to suggest that the Magi were kings basing his idea on an interpretation of Psalms 72:10-11 ‘The kings of Tarshish....the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him’. There were other Adoration prophesies to be found in the Old Testament though more obscure - Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon and ‘three mighty men’ visiting David. Solomon and David were both kings of the Jews. The emergence and development of the black Magus was complicated by myths and themes around two other blacks - Prester John, the mythical Ethiopian King and the Queen of Sheba – their iconography complicated and contaminated that of the black Magus. The image with two white and one black magus also represented the whole of mankind paying homage to the infant Christ, as the bible teaches - all nations should be baptized (Mat 28:19) and all men should come to the Lord (1 Tim 2:4) as there be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16). This was the Church welcoming to blacks seeing their presence as one of the manifestations of the Golden Age written in Revelations 20 1:7. It is safe to say is that Cologne played an important role in the mid fourteenth century and perhaps earlier in portraying one of the Magi as black : the patron saint of the city was the black Saint Maurice whose representation perhaps, has its origins in the Ethiopians Frederick II (1194-1250) met on his Crusades; the city also also had the three Magi represented on its coat of arms and its Cathedral contains the shrine of the three kings. The Black Kings entered Renaissance iconic Adorations as one of the three Kings with Hans Memling’s 1474 copy of the work of his master Hans van der Weyden with one change in the figures in the Nativity scene the young swaggering White magus Memling replaced with young Black KingMemling So to say that the image was a response to slavery or was specifically related slavery is incorrect and ill-informed, its origin predates the transatlantic slave in enslaved Africans. Essentially the Adoration composition celebrates all earthly Kings coming together to pay homage to the heavenly King - Jesus God made man, King of Heaven and Earth. To conclude the images of the Black Magus has a history which began before the trade in enslaved people, part of a very different story - slavery is NOT the only lens to consider the Black image and its history. So to say that the image was a response to slavery or was specifically related slavery is incorrect and ill-informed, its origin predates the transatlantic slave in enslaved Africans. Essentially the Adoration composition celebrates all earthly Kings coming together to pay homage to the heavenly King - Jesus God made man, King of Heaven and Earth. To conclude the images of the Black Magus has a history which began before the trade in enslaved people, part of a very different story - slavery is NOT the only lens to consider the Black image and its history. Want to know more about the Black Magus - his religious, cultural and social meaning ?
See my blog Black Africans in Renaissance Europe or attend my annual 6th January Epiphany Presentation THE BLACK KING TOUR Power and Magnificence The Epiphany at the National Gallery Tate Britain has race attitude problem in its Restaurant which weasel words alone cannot fix. Quick to give ‘guidance’ to visitors to their British Baroque exhibition that ‘Paintings in this exhibition depict Black people in a demeaning way’, while Whistler’s The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats mural in their Restaurant carries no such warning. This despite being much more graphic, much more horrific and truly much more demeaning than Benedetto Gennari’s Duchess Mazarin Dressed as Diana. British BaroqueQuoting Tate on the mural: "As part of this Whistler depicts the enslavement of a [naked] Black child and the distress of his mother using highly stereotyped figures that were common at the time. In later scenes the boy runs behind a cart, attached to it by a chain around [the child's] neck". details from Whistler's murali Charles Aitken, the director who commissioned the work in 1927 had views which today, we would consider out of touch. Quoted in Daily Mail in 1929 racially described the presence of black figures in Stanley Spencer’s The Resurrection, Cookham “...waking from the death of humanity – the white races …occupied with things intellectual, the black races satisfied with simple tactile shapes”. Appreciate that was then this is now - views, feelings, ideas have changed. So rather than remove the mural, Tate might give the same thought that went into that ‘guidance’ sign for the British Baroque exhibition be given to an equivalent response to The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, if Tate really wants to reaffirm its commitment to combating racism. For that response I propose a work of equivalent size to be on permanent display as close as possible to Whistler's be commissioned by Tate not from the established black artist but a fresh talent, on the rise, someone under 25, part of the generation that is on the streets, right now, proclaiming Black Lives Matter quite unlike Tate's mural. Update 9th AuGustSince I posted that Tate's position has become even more untenable and hypocritical. They knew about the consequences of these offensive images in 2013 ! We know this thanks to the leaked Tate Ethics Committee report from that year sent to the White Pube which they posted on Instagram .....and here's a screen shot from the 2013 BBC news video which reported on the restoration , it shows one of the images...
It was great to be back at the National Gallery after four months. The attendants were brilliant, greeted us like old friends as many of them recalled me from my doing tours there. And to see so many paintings from my tour was like meeting old friends couldn't resist a selfie with a couple of black kings. I was celebrating my birthday with my first trip into London in four months with a trip to the National Gallery. There were the inevitable pandemic precautions in place - timed, ticketed entry, one way routes thru the gallery, with hand sprays in the lifts. Some of which worked to my advantage. The pandemic precautions meant there was a lot of space and time to see and contemplate the works So it was quite a lovely way to spend my birthday afternoon. The great find and surprise was Room 32. Room 32, the largest and one of the most visited rooms of the National Gallery, displaying 17th-Century Italian Baroque paintings, newly reopened after a 21 month refurbishment project, following a £4 million donation from The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust. Hans father was the inventor of the tetra pack worth 12billion$ . It looked magnificent - shiny and new - the quality of the finish glowed everywhere from the newly laid floor to the lighting, there's a great video showing the refurbishment and and the number of dedicated folk involved. Image of the black in room 32 ?To my delight and surprise Room 32 was full of Image of the Black pictures, so much so I could have done a mini tour there. Sadly such tours won't be happening for perhaps another 12 months. (Currently they are on line.) This number of paintings with a black presence is complete contrast to Room 30 next door - Spanish art from the same period as Room 32, there are no black folk in the paintings, if you want to know why have a look of my review of Carmen Fracchia book Black but Human I took a few pictures in Room 32....... Here's the complete list of Image of the Black pictures in Room 32: Mattia Preti The Marriage at Cana Johann Liss Judith in the Tent of Holofernes Luca Giordano Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone Carlo Dolci The Adoration of the Kings Francesco Solimena Dido receiving Aeneas and Cupid disguised as Ascanius My very favourite was Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone which like Judith in the Tent of Holofernes has an explicit Black presence , one that you can see on the canvas but it also has an implicit, hidden Black presence. The explicit presence in Judith in the Tent of Holofernes is its black maid servant holding the basket to take the severed head of Holoferines while for Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone it's the fallen black fighter in the picture's lower foreground. Both paintings have not just those explicit presences but each has an implicit Black presences - Judith in the Tent of Holofernes is to to found in who donated the work to the Gallery while for Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone it is found in the woman who the two protagonists are fighting over. But what about room 62 ?I have one small gripe abut the current collection which the Lockdown has thrown into focus as I prepared for my online talks. Where are the Black presences in Room 62 fifteenth century Cologne and North Western Germany ? First, why should the Room have a black presence ? Because there were four possible significant black presences from this period - the Black Queen of Sheba, the Black King in the Adoration picture , the Moors head crest and the Black St Maurice - at various times they were symbols of power and status.used by The Holy Roman Empire's clergy and the nobility. There are many examples from the period especially of the Black King and St Maurice. I would be particular keen for the National to purchase a St Maurice., as this would bring the Room to life, truly reflect the art from the period and make the National connect further and better with a more diverse audience. To conclude yes it would be good to have a St Maurice in Room 62 , nevertheless it was great to be back in the National , the refurbished Room 32 is brilliant ....and there's more still to see as couldn't make it to the exhibition Titian Love, Desire, Death as it was sold out for my birthday, I've booked for August (the earliest date I could get!). so more of the National to look forward to.
It's great to be back in the National! The Uffizi Gallery in Florence is celebrating Black History Month [1] 2020 with an online virtual exhibition to show the Black African presence in its collection On Being Present. A presence it admits that even those with an acute eye for detail might miss, it is certainly not due to the lack of Black Africans in its collection as there are over 20. Their presence says more about what they call ‘the historical and art historical frameworks within which viewers navigate these spaces contributing to their obscurity’ ie the viewer simply does not see them, the Black African figure is hidden in plain site. I am very familiar with the apparent invisibility of the Black African figure from my own tours, evidenced by the shock on many folks' faces when the Black figure is pointed out to them. In the interests of fairness it should be pointed out most times the Black African figures are not the subject of the painting, they are supporting, marginalised figures, which means they can be easily overlooked in favour of the dominant figure or narrative as portrayed by the artist. This to me is what makes the Uffizi's virtual exhibition so special as there are works in which the black figure is central and unmissable such as the two wonderful portraits of Benedetto d’Angola Silva as well as Black figure's more conventional role as a marginal, supporting, as seen in Vittore Carpaccio’s Gli alabardieri. I was delighted to see that I knew , having corresponded with them, three of the nine art historians who have written commentaries for this virtual exhibition and they had each made a contribution to my John Blanke Project - a contemporary Art and Archive project celebrating John Blanke the Black trumpeter to courts of Henry VII & Henry VIII - Kate Lowe, Paul Kaplan, and Temi Odumosu The exhibition's commentaries were insightful and informative, there was one that particularly stood out for me, that was Dennis Geronimus on Piero di Cosimo Perseus frees Andromeda. He made two related comments which made me reflect. He states that black Andromedas are rarer than Black musicians whom themselves are rare. I would argue that black Andromedas are not just rare, they are none existent from the period. This follows on from my readings of Elizabeth McGrath's work on Andromeda[2], I can find no black Andromeda from the period, Cosmo like Titan, Veronese and as other artists do without exception, paint Andromeda as white despite knowing her to be the daughter of the king and queen of Ethiopia. Later he argues Andrea Mantegna depicts a black African ‘drummer-fifer’ in his antique-inspired Introduction of the Cult of Cybele in Rome of 1505–6. I too once considered the figure to be black, I included him in my Image of the Black in National Gallery tour. However, having studied it for some time now and consulted others with an interest in the field. The conclusion I have come to is that I have no proof – in physiognomy, in dress or in writings on Mantegna - to say that he is black African. The closest connection to black African I can make is to compare him with the Black African flute and tabor player in Master of Frankfurt (15th century) Festival of the Archers playing the same instruments.Thus for me Mantegna's ‘drummer-fifer’ is not a Black African. To conclude, On Being Present clearly highlights the physical Black African presence in Renaissance Italy and Europe in doing so it ‘confirm[s] the presence of the continent of Africa in the consciousness of the commissioners of these works from a range of artists across time and speak to the incredible cultural exchange that was taking place when these works were being made, indeed.....[t]his presence is simultaneously a physical reality and a metaphysical one both of which guided the shaping of “Western” history with its inclusions and omissions.” This online exhibition certainly makes that explicit and implicit presence manifest and I thoroughly recommend it.
1. Black History Month in America is February in Great Britain we celebrate it in October 2. The Black Andromeda Author(s): Elizabeth McGrath, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 55 (1992), pp. 1-18, The Warburg Institute, http://www.jstor.org/stable/751417, Accessed: 05-04-2018 07:06 UTC Ras Makunnan (1852-1906) 1903 watercolour by Sir Leslie Ward While researching in the National Portrait Gallery online came across this wonderful water colour of Ras Makunnan or Mäkonnen the father of Emperor Haile Selassie I by Sir Leslie Ward for 12 February 1903 edition of Vanity Fair
Ward worked for Vanity Fair magazine. Where he produced caricatures of many of the leading characters of the day, including artists, athletes, royalty, statesmen, scientists, authors, actors, soldiers and scholars. Ward worked under the pseudonym 'Spy'. The Wallace Collection sensationalises its Asante gold collection which it variously describes as ‘spectacular’, ‘fabulous’, ‘impressive’ ‘incredible’ without any modern academic credibility or innovative museum curation on show in support of these claims. Their dismal presentation is in stark contrast to what Xavier Bray, Director of the Wallace Collection is reported to have said about the work [1] We are keen to work with scholars and researchers in Ghana and internationally to develop OUR understanding of this incredible work of art for the benefit of all.’ (emphasis and capitals by the author) I question who he is referring to when he refers to ‘our’ , exactly who is included ? The Collection's visitors? Academics ? The Asante people ? Armour specialist ? All will be left questioning the Collection's description of this stolen golden horde. I question his use of the descriptor ‘art’ as they were not meant to be exhibition pieces in a collection on armoury these objects are revered as sacred and ceremonial. I have yet to see any evidence of the Wallace Collection being ‘keen to work with scholars and researchers’ to increase the scholarship around the pieces, quite the opposite in fact the little scholarship they have on the web to support the Asante gold is seen in the ‘Further Reading’ a lone reference to the 1914 catalogue Laking, Guy Francis, 'Wallace Collection Catalogue: Oriental Arms and Armour', London. Early twentieth century ‘Further Reading’ in stark contrast to the twenty-first century 'Further Reading' lists to support the other works the Wallace Collection classes as ‘collection highlights specifically Hal’s The Laughing Cavalier and Fragonard’s The Swing. There seems to be zero attempt to address any modern scholarship on the pieces as they had the opportunity to do this at the recent Richard Wallace 200 exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of the collector who brought the Asante gold into the collection. The head was fetishized by spot light in a darkened in a glass cabinet with no attendant scholarly presentations or talks to further 'our' understanding of the piece. Currently the works are lost in a series of glass cabinets all taller than the one containing the Asante Golden Head. No evidence of the head being ‘spectacular’, ‘fabulous’, ‘impressive’ ‘incredible’ quite the opposite it looks dilapidated, isolated ,and lost with a tired yellowing plaque next to the head in its case. And to the side an equally tired looking and much thumbed, worn out copy of the 1914 edition of 'Wallace Collection Catalogue: Oriental Arms and Armour' such was the age and appearance of the copy on display (see picture below) it looked like a museum piece rather than a guide to the works on display. The only change I’ve seen in the time I’ve been doing Image of the Black Tours of the Wallace Collection is that now the head is on a stand, previously it just lay forlornly on its side. It is not as if though they are not aware of the scholarship on the gold as the Wallace Collection's own library has an entire shelf devoted to the works as well as a large curatorial file full of revealing facts and history about the works. That file includes correspondence confirming for me that the head is indeed, that of an enemy, as Asantehene Prempeh II is quoted as saying ' It must be the head of an enemy as it was the custom to attach such trophy heads to the Golden Stool'. The knowledge in the library is not reflected in the display - in fact quite the opposite - the display looks as though their knowledge is restricted to those few lines from a 1914 catalogue on oriental arm and armoury. I urge the Wallace Collection as a minimum to 1. Better present the works if it really believes they are ‘spectacular’, ‘fabulous’, ‘impressive’ ‘incredible’ 2. Make manifest the modern scholarship on the work, it has the knowledge and the academic and museum connections In doing so present them in manner worthy of their heritage and meaning rather than having them both physically and historically lost in the gloom of its Arms and Armoury Gallery. The Great Gallery would be a most fitting place reflecting the importance of the work to the Collection. At the same time they should consider their position as recipients of stolen goods and consider returning these looted works to their rightful owners, the Asante people. We know exactly where they came from – Manhyia Palace, Kumasi - which is now a museum so the works have a ready-made home where they would be researched , cherished and celebrated by the people who rightfully own them – quite unlike in The Wallace Collection The Wallace would not be the first British Institution to return looted goods Manchester Museum was amongst the first when it returned sacred aboriginal objects stolen a century ago. More recently the British Government has returned a religious statue looted during the Falkland War and most recently (Nov ’29) Cambridge University has agreed to return a looted Benin Bronze stolen in 1897 to its home in Nigeria. So the precedent has been set for these looted goods – The Wallace Collection ‘s Asante Gold - to be returned to their rightful, lawful owners.....or at least display the Gold in a manner that reflects the Wallace Collection's Director belief that the Asante Gold is in deed 'incredible' and should be displayed for benefit of all. The Wallace Collection needs to do the right thing either display them better or better still return these stolen goods. [1] https://www.timeout.com/london/news/should-london-museums-give-back-their-disputed-objects-081418 (accessed 29th Nov '19)
Sample Further Reading: Prof Edward S. Ayensu (1998) Ashanti Gold Marshall Editions Fagg, William. ‘Ashanti Gold’. The Connoisseur 185, no. 743 (January 1974): 41-48. Web https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/contested-asante-trophy-head-to-shine-in-new-wallace-room https://www.modernghana.com/news/871280/looted-asante-ghana-gold-in-wallace-collection.html One of the stars of my Image of the Black National Gallery tour is Eduard Degas’ mysterious and wonderful Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando has finally returned to the National Gallery after her tours. She’s been away for over a year, in that time I’ve had to make do with giving out its postcard to discuss one of the most important works on the black presence in the Gallery. Before each tour of the gallery I do the tour by myself to see what works have been removed to be cleaned or gone out on loan. I’m not looking for what’s returned, it was an attendee from a tour that emailed me to tell me I’d missed Miss La La – she was back - as I was still using my iPad and postcards to discuss her as I have done for the past year. She’s been up North at an itinerant circus exhibition and in France at one on the black model. Both extremely worthy loans, the former demonstrating the working role black folk played in society while the later was brilliant survey of the role of the black model in French art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the French exhibition I was also able to see the other iconic female figure National Gallery black presence The Black Woman normally on long term loan to Dublin City Gallery. Loans are important way for Galleries to spread the word, the soft power of their art. I guess they will be all part of our post BREXIT debate when seeking trade with other parts of the world. The loan to Japan for the forthcoming Olympics – the National Gallery’s biggest yet – is a good example as what better show case for Britain’s’ well established cultural artistic traditions than an Olympics where the world meets. It’s great to have Miss La la, back my only gripe is why so close to two doors ? This hanging makes it impossible for a group to gather without being told to move on. So my tour’s postcards have gone but the iPad picture remains with the actual Miss La La viewed at a distance by the group. But I’m nit-picking she’s back, which is good …..just hope she’s now not going to Japan!
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