News
Boston Globe: 'Black and white photographs of Victorian England'
Not all of these images are of the everyday sort, but the fact that so many are seems far more exotic than the subjects’ skin color. We see married couples, men in uniform, a black butler and white maid (with their white employers), two bishops, a...
okayafrica.: 'Long Lost Victorian-Era Portraits Of Black British Citizens Revealed In A New Exhibition '
This fall, Black Chronicles II, an exhibition showcasing never-before-seen portraits of 19th and early 20th century Black British citizens, makes its U.S. premiere at Harvard's The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery for African & African-American Art. The show is...
Colorlines: 'New Exhibit Features Never-Before-Seen Photos of 19th Century Free Blacks'
A thousand words are cool and all, but the creators behind a new exhibit at Harvard University’s Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African-American Art in Cambridge, Mass., are hoping that visitors walk away with even more to ruminate on.
Harvard Gazette: 'Life behind the Pose'
“We are not what we seem.” When the iconic novelist Richard Wright wrote those words, in 1940, he was describing the African-American experience. As a stunning new exhibit at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery shows, the complexity of seeing and identity took...
Everett Potter: 'Exploring Britain’s Black Victorians at Harvard’s Cooper Gallery'
With the U.S. premiere of “Black Chronicles II,” Americans get a rare and intriguing glimpse into the lives of blacks in Victorian England. At Harvard University’s Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, September 2-December 11, the...
International Review of African American Art: 'All Too Human, Victorian Swag in Tow'
If we close our eyes and recall images of black people from earlier centuries, what is imprinted in our memories? Do we see elegance, dignity, refinement, beauty, intelligence—all facets of human subjectivity—among those used to tell the story of history...
Artscope: A Critical Look at Black Photographic History
When the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art opened last fall in Harvard Square, just behind Peet’s Coffee, I was overjoyed, since there’s now somewhere in the square one can enter and leave with rich takings without being followed...
Atlanta Black Star: 'New Exhibit Highlights Black Presence in Victorian England'
An exhibit debuting Wednesday at the Cooper Gallery of African & African-American Art at Harvard University features photographs of Blacks living in Victoria-era England.
NewBostonPost: 'Rare photos of 19th-century blacks speak to modern Americans'
Rare, striking and never-before-seen portraits of black citizens in Victorian-era England are going on display for the first time in the U.S., and organizers say the photographs have a powerful message for contemporary Americans riven by racism. “There’s...
New York Times: '‘Black Chronicles II’ Exhibition in Cambridge Set for September'
“Black Chronicles II,” an exhibition of photographs of black subjects in Britain in the late 1800s to early 1900s, will be shown to an American audience for the first time starting Sept. 2 at the new Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African American Art in...
Boston Globe: 'Cuban resilience shines at Harvard, heroes take flight at BU'
Grupo Antillano has largely slipped through the cracks of Cuban art history. The movement, active from 1978 to 1983, celebrated African and Afro-Caribbean influences in Cuban culture. “Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba,” on view at...
Arts Fuse: 'Visual Arts Review: Asserting Cuban Identity — Through Art'
What does it mean to be Cuban? That’s a complicated question, bound to evoke different answers, depending on whom you ask. Raoul Castro might say one thing, Marco Rubio another. The descendant of a Spanish sugar producer, an African slave’s great-great...
