...Black Doll Exhibition Explores Women’s Craft...

The image above and the text below are from the Culture Type article, "In Paris, Black Doll Exhibition Explores Women’s Craft, History of Childhood Play, and Dynamics of America’s Racial Structure"

by VICTORIA L. VALENTINE on Apr 11, 2018 • 6:58 am

"EUROPEAN MUSEUMS ARE EXPOSING THEIR AUDIENCES to works by African Americans artists that reflect and respond to the history of race in United States. Two major exhibitions, “The Color Line: African American Artists and Segregation” at Le musée du quai Branly in Paris (2016), and “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” organized by the Tate Modern in London (2017), explored the intersection of art and politics during the Jim Crow, civil rights, and Black Power eras.

"A new exhibition at La Maison Rouge in Paris presents art objects produced during an earlier period in American history. “Black Dolls: The Deborah Neff Collection” (2018) features more than 200 dolls hand made between the 1840s and 1940s. While the other exhibitions present works made by artists intended as art objects, these items were crafted as items of everyday play and companionship for children. The dolls are believed to be designed and crafted by African Americans, primarily black women, for their own children or for the white children in their charge, during and after slavery. They are objects of beauty, curiosity and originality, toys that speak to the history of race, gender roles, domestic relationships, and caregiving."

Read the rest of the article here.

Neff's collection of black dolls are beautifully photographed and described in the book, Black Dolls:  From the Collection of Deborah Neff

Get a 34-second glimpse of the collection in the following video.




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