5. Josephine Baker, The London Palladium, Argyll Street, Soho

Black Pearl, Jazz Cleopatra and Bronze Venus are just some of the pseudonyms adopted throughout the life of Josephine Baker. A dancer, singer, actress, entertainer, anti-fascist heroine, bisexual icon, spy for the French Resistance, civil rights and racial equality activist, she is remembered today primarily as a radical. 

Baker had an impoverished childhood, marrying for the first time at thirteen and running away at fifteen to begin her career in performance. She moved to New York City and participated in the celebration of black life and art now known as ‘The Harlem Renaissance’. A few years later her fame took her to Paris where she cemented her iconic status. It was there that she started a relationship with Frida Kahlo, finding mutal attraction in their similarities as bisexual women of colour, artists and activists. Her private life was as unconventional as her public one; she adopted twelve children known as the “rainbow tribe” and raised them in a French Château, the primary scandal being that some of them were white. 

Baker is one of the most successful African American performers in history and her career illustrates just some of the ways entertainers can use their platforms to change the world. She continued to perform throughout her life and in 1974, just a year before her death, she was on stage at the London Palladium.

Print is 20 x 25cm, unframed, signed, numbered and comes with the above accompanying text.