UC Art Historian Featured in Series on African American Expatriates in Paris

A recently released DVD series,

“When African Americans Came to Paris,”

features University of Cincinnati art historian Theresa Leininger-Miller, associate professor in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).

The series, designed for grades 6 through 12, focuses on African American artists, photographers, musicians, and others who relocated to Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in order to enjoy greater civil, social, and cultural liberty – and to use and contribute their talents in a wider sphere.

Leininger-Miller, author of the book “New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934” (used as a textbook nationally), is featured in two segments of the six-part DVD series, produced by Blue Lion Films Inc. and Walking the Spirit Tours of Black Paris.

She is featured in a DVD titled “Henry Ossawa Tanner: An Artist in Exile” and in one titled “Three Women Artists in Paris,” which features information about sculptors Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and Augusta Savage, and painter Lois Mailou Jones.

According to Leininger-Miller, Tanner was the “dean” of African American artists in Paris, having settled in the city in 1893 and remaining there for most of his life until his death in 1937. “He pursued his artistic career there for more than 40 years and became internationally celebrated. He was the first of many African American artists to follow.”

She is using the DVDs in her own classes, including “African American Art: 1619-1945” as well as a graduate seminar titled “American Modernism in Black and White.”

“The best part of being part of the series is the opportunity to bring this work to a wider audience and by means of DVD. This was once a hidden history, but there is a growing body of scholarship about the achievements of the African American diaspora of the era, when African Americans traveled to France and throughout Europe in order to seek greater professional opportunities and enjoy more social and cultural freedom,” Leininger-Miller explained.

“When African Americans Came To Paris” was produced, directed, and edited by Paris-based New Yorker Joanne Burke, CEO of Blue Lion Films, Inc. Her long career includes editing three feature films for Sidney Lumet; for the Maysles Brothers’ feature documentary “Gimme Shelter” about the Rolling Stones; and her own production of the award-winning film, “Mary Lou Williams: Music on my Mind,”about the great jazz pianist and composer. Her husband David Burke, a former “60 Minutes” writer/ producer, is the writer for all of her films. Their current work-in-progress is an hour-length documentary called “Paris Noir, African Americans in the City of Light.”