Video: The Founding of Black Orpheus in 1950s Nigeria

In 1957, Ulli Beier created the journal Black Orpheus to circulate and celebrate the creativity of artists, writers, and thinkers in Anglophone Africa. It served as an English-language counterpoint to existing publications like Afrique Noire. In this short video, Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club, co-curator Ndubuisi Ezeluomba discusses the creation of this important publication in Nigeria.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NOMA (@neworleansmuseumofart)


Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club was made possible in part by major funding from National Endowment for the Humanities, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Getty Foundation Paper Project, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the IFPDA Foundation. The Wyeth Foundation for American Art provided support for the exhibition catalogue.