To engage with lost art, remake it yourself

REDISCOVERING BLACK PORTRAITURE

Rediscovering Black Portraiture

Peter Brathwhaite

Getty Publications, 168 pages Hardback, 11 April 2023, 9781606068168, RRP £35.00

Check our website for discount: www.booklaunch.london

AUTHOR’S NOTE

During the pandemic, my social media feed was awash with photos by people with time on their hands who had challenged themselves to re-create their favourite artworks using everyday items found at home. I had done so myself but for professional reasons. As a black British opera singer, I had wanted evidence not to have to “white up” for an opera production that required me to play the part of a French aristocrat. I had trawled the internet and found a portrait of a black man of high status portrayed in his own skin in eighteenth-century Paris. Armed with his likeness I ditched the white greasepaint and portrayed myself authentically for a change.

Since then, I have been searching for and recreating as many black figures from art as possible, using found objects and the camera of my iPhone 7. The results rescue them from oblivion, restore their dignity, and reveal the true diversity of European history and art.

READERS’ COMMENTS

Samira Ahmed, BBC broadcaster:

This is a book that will enchant and intrigue and educate. I’m thrilled by the beauty and fun and history on every page.

Professor Dorothy Price:

A truly compelling visual feast that reanimates the archives of black portraiture in the present.