​Miss La La – She’s back !

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando

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.

Blaze Tarsha in front of the Degas painting at the National Gallery

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.

Miss La La at the Musee D'Orsay Exhibition

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.

National Gallery's The Black Woman at Musee D'Orsay

​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.

Miss La La back on display at National Gallery

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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