Discussion about the jazzy workings in the Senegalese artists painting of Bessie Smith in the African Art Museum Collections.
Smithsonian Artifact Featured in this Video
Hommage à Bessie Smith
View More about Hommage à Bessie Smith
- Label Text
- Hommage à Bessie Smith is part of an important series of paintings that Senegalese artist Iba N'Diaye devoted to the great performers of jazz and gospel music. With their warm colors, expressive brushstrokes and schematic figuration, N'Diaye's works capture the charged atmosphere of the jazz clubs of Harlem and Montmartre and highlight the potency of shared artistic expressions throughout the Black Atlantic world from the early to mid-20th century.
- Description
- Painting with three jazz players outlined in the foreground: on the left, a trumpet player, at center, a figure singing into a microphone, and to the right, another trumpet player. The trumpet players wear black and white suits and the vocalist at center wears red. The trumpets are light orange. The background is predominantly gray and blue. Above the vocalist at center are two figures, one in profile, the other in three-quarter face outlined in black and orange. In the background at upper right is a classically posed figure: a face in light yellow, outlined in orange, gazes at the musicians below. At far right is a condensed abstraction of an orchestra and trumpet bell.
- Provenance
- Mme. Abdou Diouf, Paris, -- to 2002
- Exhibition History
- African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (reinstalled April 8, 2016–August 2, 2019)
- Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue - From the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, November 7, 2014-January 24, 2016
- African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013-ongoing (deinstalled October 15, 2014)
- African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2010-November 19, 2013
- Insights, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., February 27 to November 28, 2004
- Recent Acquisitions and Promised Gifts, National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 18, 2002-January 5, 2003
- Published References
- Kreamer, Christine Mullen and Adrienne L. Childs (eds). 2014. Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue from the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 240-241, pl. 135.
- Content Statement
- As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
- Image Requests
- High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Maker
- Iba N'Diaye, 1928-2008, Senegal
- Date
- 1987
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mme. Diouf and museum purchase
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 132.2 × 197.2 × 4 cm (52 1/16 × 77 5/8 × 1 9/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
