In 1957, the German expatriate scholar Ulli Beier started a Mbari Arts and Culture magazine in Lagos, Nigeria. He called it Black Orpheus, after “Orphée Noir,” the preface of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache. Beier’s publication brought together writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. It was around then, in 1962, that the American artist Jacob Lawrence visited the newly independent nation. Lawrence only stayed for 10 days but knew he wanted to return. Two years later, he sold his Brooklyn apartment and flew. Lawrence and his wife, the artist Gwendolyn Knight, spent eight months in Nigeria painting, sketching, and holding workshops for local artists. This exhibition presents the output of Lawrence and his contemporaries in the Global South, energized by the journal Black Orpheus.
—Elena Clavarino