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Josephine Baker made her debut in Berlin in 1926 as “Black Venus”, playing Charleston at the Nelson Theater on Kurfürstendamm. “Berlin feels so good!” she said excitedly afterwards. “It’s pure victory. They carry me sky high. No other city has received so many love letters, flowers and gifts.”
Almost a century later, a new exhibition focusing on her life and legacy is being held at the Neue Nationalgalerie in the German capital. Photographs, drawings, books, programs, record jackets, and other archival documents reveal Baker’s accomplishments in the fields of music, film, and dance, as well as her work as a resistance fighter and civil rights activist.
Her work is exhibited alongside that of contemporary artists like Simone Lee, Faith Ringgold, and Carrie Mae Weems, who cite her as a lasting cultural influence.
Born Frieda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, Baker was a natural entertainer from an early age and began dancing at the age of 13 in New York. It was his first world tour with a musical show. La Revue Nagle, she arrived in Paris in 1925. At the time, European countries were still expanding their colonial powers, and racial segregation was common throughout the continent. Despite this situation, audiences were captivated by Baker’s natural charm, and she introduced them to African American music and dance.
Although Baker became a movie star and muse, she was consistently otherized and hypersexualized. She often plays with racist stereotypes to gain the goodwill of her audience, such as wearing the banana skirt that she has made iconic or imitating caricatures of popular bards. I had to perform.
By the time she was 20, Baker had had two failed marriages to much older men. After this, she had two further important relationships, by the time she married French composer Joe Bouillon in 1947. With him she continued to travel around the world, eventually adopting her eleven children of various ethnicities, which she called the “Rainbow Tribe”.
During World War II, Baker became a spy for the Free French Committee, sent on undercover missions such as transporting top secret information written in invisible ink on sheet music across borders. Baker was also a champion of anti-racism, advocating it during his performances, and after the war became president of the International Association Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.
In 1963, Baker was invited by Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at the March on Washington. “Folks, I’m not a young woman now,” she told the crowd. “I don’t have that much fire burning inside of me. And before that fire goes out, I want you to use what’s left to kindle that fire inside of you – then.” Well, you can go on and do what I’ve been doing.”
“Josephine Baker: Icon of Movement” is currently on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie on Potsdamer Strasse. 50, Berlin, Germany, until April 28. Check out more images from the exhibition below.
George Hoyningen-Huene josephine baker (1929). Photo: © George Hoyningen Huene Estate Archives.
Josephine Baker, Paris, 1927. Photo: © James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, Yale University.
Baker, Josephine. Photo: © From the Collection: Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967 / Photographs of Famous African Americans. James Weldon Johnson Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Collection of American Literature.
Simone Lee slipcover (2022–23). Photo: © Simone Leigh, courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.
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