Josephine Baker and La Revue nègre

by Paul Colin

Josephine Baker, the Jazz Age, African-American performers in 1920s Paris - all are vividly drawn in Paul Colin's limited-edition portfolio of forty-five lithographs titled Le Tumulte noir. First published in 1927, the work captures in brilliant colors and energetic lines the uproar black Americans created in music and dance in Paris after World War I. This new book re-creates the look and feel of Colin's Art Deco masterwork by reproducing, in large format, all of the lithographs, as well as the original preface by Rip (satirist Georges Thenon) and Baker's own handwritten commentary. In a new introduction to the portfolio, scholars Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Karen C.C. Dalton celebrate those spirited times, and the woman who captured the hearts of a generation.