This event sounded fascinating and as a lover of photography and history, I wanted to alert you to an upcoming exhibit that starts this fall in Boston.
The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery for African & African-American Art will present the U.S. premiere of “Black Chronicles II,” an exhibition curated by London-based arts agency Autograph ABP that explores the presence of black subjects in 19th and early 20th century British photography.
The stunning mix of rare and mostly never-seen images depicts both ordinary and prominent citizens — artists, dignitaries, servicemen, missionaries, students, businessmen and international royalty — captured in portraits by professional photographers. “Black Chronicles II” will run from September 23 to December 11, 2015 at the Cooper Gallery in Harvard Square Cambridge, an easy 15 minutes from downtown Boston.
Developed through original research in the holdings of national archives and several private collections in the U.K. – primarily in collaboration with Getty Images’ Hulton Archive – the exhibition includes more than 100 photographs taken in studios across Britain before 1938. A majority of the photographs were made in the latter half of the 19th century, during the Victorian Era.
The exhibition’s focus is a newly rediscovered series of exquisitely rendered photographic portraits from Hulton Archive’s London Stereoscopic Company collection, featuring more than 30 portraits of The African Choir, which toured Britain between 1891 and 1893. Buried deeply in the archives for decades, these images are presented for the first time in 125 years, with a selection of original albumen cartes-de-visite (calling cards) that became popular collectibles in the late nineteeth century.
Though from a foreign country, and of a very different era, “Black Chronicles” speaks to audiences today – to our common humanity, to our ancestry, and to every cultural traveler’s fascination with the histories of people from other shores.
Photo from the http://www.coopergalleryhc.org/ website.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
