A Paris Fantasy Transformed

Abstract

Paris! Why Paris? Why did I—or any African American artist or writer—go to Paris? When I was a teenager in the 1950s, African American artists (and writers, dancers, jazz musicians, actors) had already enjoyed a long relationship with Paris. Even before the end of slavery, free mulattos, some of them artists, were traveling to Paris and other parts of Europe. They went for many different reasons. One of the best known of those who went in the nineteenth century was the painter Henry O. Tanner....