I created this digital archive as a final project for the Maymester course, “CORE 499: Special Topics: Sojourners: Mapping Black American Culture in Paris,” through the University of Southern California and US History Scene.

This project addresses the absence of work by Black artists and work depicting Black subjects within popular Parisian museums by presenting and analyzing the work of Black artists and work featuring Black subjects in Musée de l’Orangerie, Musée d’Orsay, Musée du Louvre, & Le Centre Pompidou. It also aims to present a counternarrative by including “missing” pieces of artwork featuring Black subjects by Black artists (some of whose work is already within these museums) within the time period each museum focuses upon.

The research for this project was conducted in Paris, France, and Los Angeles, California, under the advisement of Dr. Rhae Lynn Barnes, in 2018. The archive has not been updated since.

It was inspired by André Derain’s 1930 oil painting “Black Man w/ Mandolin” (pictured to the left), the only painting with a Black subject displayed in the Musée de l’Orangerie, when I visited with my dad in May 2018.