A fun and fact-filled introduction to the dismissed Black art masters and models who shook up
the world. Elegant. Refined. Exclusionary. Interrupted. The foundations of the fine art world
are shaking. Beyoncé and Jay-Z break the internet by blending modern Black culture with fine
art in their iconic music video filmed in the Louvre. Kehinde Wiley powerfully subverts
European masterworks. Calls resonate for diversity in museums and the resignations of leaders
of the old guard. It's clear that modern day museums can no longer exist without change?and
without recognizing that Black people have been a part of the Western art world since its
beginnings. Quietly held within museum and private collections around the world are hundreds of
faces of Black men and women many of their stories unknown. From paintings of majestic kings
to a portrait of a young girl named Isabella in Amsterdam these models lived diverse lives
while helping shape the art world along the way. Then after hundreds of years of Black faces
cast as only the subject of the white gaze a small group of trailblazing Black American
painters and sculptors reached national and international fame setting the stage for the
flourishing of Black art in the 1920s and beyond. Captivating and informative BLK ART is an
essential work that elevates a globally dismissed legacy to its proper place in the mainstream
art canon. From the hushed corridors of royal palaces to the bustling streets of 1920s
Paris?this is Black history like never seen before.
