Rediscovering Black Portraiture by Peter Brathwaite
* Author interview on BBC Radio 4 * “The book arguably reclaims Black history and art” The Art Newspaper * “A new, necessary chapter of art history” La Repubblica * Author interview on BBC Radio 3 Arts & Ideas * Book of the Week The Idler Magazine * Featured event at Stratford Literary Festival * Author interview on BBC Radio London * UK launch day signing at Hatchards Piccadilly * Author signing at Tate Modern London * Associated exhibition at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery * Featured event at Idler Festival * Spotlighted book at Librairie-boutique Musée du Quai Branly during Black Portraiture[s] Conference, Paris 2023 (NYU; The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research/Harvard University; Cornell University; Spelman College) * Featured speaker at Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art Tudors Now! event * Featured event at the Great Exhibition Road Festival * Featured event at Leeds Lieder Festival * Featured speaker at Referentiality: Towards a Decentred Future, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London * Featured event at Cheltenham Literature Festival * Featured event at Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford * Featured event at Gloucester History Festival * Featured event at the V&A Museum * Featured event at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art * Featured event with HistFest at the British Library * Featured event at University of Southern California * Featured event at Shakespeare’s Globe * Featured event at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford * Author interview for Times Radio *
Summary
By Peter Brathwaite, with contributions by Dr Cheryl Finley, Dr Temi Odumosu, and Mark Sealy OBE.
Join Peter Brathwaite on an extraordinary journey through representations of Black subjects in Western art, from medieval Europe through the present day.
Rediscovering Black Portraiture collects more than fifty of Brathwaite’s most intriguing re-creations. Introduced by the author and framed by contributions from experts in art history and visual culture, this fascinating book offers a nuanced look at the complexities and challenges of building identity within the African diaspora and how such forces have informed Black portraits over time. Artworks featured include The Adoration of the Magi by Georges Trubert, Portrait of an Unknown Man by Jan Mostaert, Rice n Peas by Sonia Boyce, Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley, and many more. This volume also invites readers behind the scenes, offering a glimpse of the elegant artifice of Brathwaite’s props, setup, and process.
An urgent and compelling exploration of embodiment, representation, and agency, Rediscovering Black Portraiture serves to remind us that Black subjects have been portrayed in art for nearly a millennium and that their stories demand to be told.
Published by Getty Publications — April 2023 (UK) & May 2023 (US)
“These mirror images with their uncanny resemblances traverse space and time, spotlighting the black lives that have been silenced by the canon of western art, while also inviting us to interrogate the present.”
— The Times
“Peter Brathwaite’s oeuvre defies neat categorization: Is it art, performance, autobiography, or art historical essay? He has blended these modes to make work that is joyful, original, and poignant. It is important and timely. To restage Black portraiture, from the Domesday Book to Kehinde Wiley, Brathwaite gets inside the lives and worlds of each sitter and brilliantly rediscovers, reclaims, and re-presents Black (art) history for modern audiences. His empathetic performances give agency to the people portrayed and breathe warmth and life into what was previously frozen; he reminds us that Black historical lives matter too.”
Lucy Peltz, Head of Collections Displays (Tudor to Regency) and Senior Curator, 18th Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery
“This highly entertaining book is a breathtaking visual explosion in which Brathwaite reimagines a wide variety of portraits of Black people in a stunningly creative way. This brilliant concept is not only an original visual treat but also an important historical work that focuses on Black portraiture across the centuries.”
Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE, actress, presenter, broadcaster, and parliamentarian
“A truly compelling visual feast that reanimates the archives of Black portraiture in the present. Brathwaite brings lost souls back into view in a meditation on Black presence within art’s histories. Accompanied by a moving commentary on his own experiences as what he terms ‘a rare breed’ of Black British opera singer encountering career-long racism, Brathwaite retells narratives of Black historical subjects in order to return dignity and agency to their otherwise so-often ‘submerged lives’. Essays from renowned scholars Cheryl Finley, Temi Odumosu and Mark Sealy amplify Brathwaite’s sensitive and poetic narrative account, as well as the extraordinarily vibrant and ambitious photographic reconstructions of historic artworks reproduced here in glorious colour. This is one of the most moving and joyous aesthetic legacies of Covid times and a triumph of creative endeavour.”
Professor Dorothy Price FBA, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art
“Ever since I first stumbled across Peter’s portraits on Twitter, I’ve been captivated by his sharp wit, innovative costuming, rich range of visual reference, and the sheer joy of each image. This is a book that will enchant and intrigue and educate. I’m thrilled by the beauty and fun and history on every page.”
Samira Ahmed, BBC broadcaster
Times Radio
In this bumper episode, Jane and Fi speak to renowned UK opera singer Peter Brathwaite at the festival about his project and book 'Rediscovering Black Portraiture'.
Black History Month 2023
Appearances at the V&A Museum, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Shakespeare’s Globe, the British Library, the University of Oxford, and more.
Review: Art Libraries Society of North America
“This publication will captivate readers and inspire meaningful dialogue about the transformative potential of art in shaping our understanding of the world.”
“The book arguably reclaims Black history and art.”
The Art Newspaper
Idler Magazine — Book of the Week
“From medieval Europe to the present day, Black subjects have been a constant presence in Western art. Peter Brathwaite’s new book, Rediscovering Black Portraiture published by Getty Publications, brings them back to the fore, uncovering their stories, perspectives and places in history. Recreating their costumes and poses, Brathwaite inhabits their worlds with wit and humour, but also poses a serious question – how were they forgotten in the first place?”
la Repubblica
“…the book Rediscovering Black Portraiture, through intelligent irony, tells a new, necessary chapter of art history. …Photographing himself, the baritone builds a vast imaginary museum, where the complexity of black culture can be enjoyed free from preconceptions.”
Country Life Magazine
“Cooking oil, Grandpap’s cou-cou stick and a quilt”
The Guardian
BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live
During the first lockdown, with all his performances cancelled, the writer and opera star Peter Brathwaite began researching his Barbadian roots, uncovering both enslaved and enslaver ancestors - culminating in a new book and exhibition at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery; Rediscovering Black Portraiture.
BBC Radio 3 Arts & Ideas Podcast
The baritone Peter Brathwaite has an exhibition of lockdown photographs in which he recreates the poses of black people portrayed in paintings from the last 800 years opening in Bristol (the photographs have also been published in a book) and has a musical work in progress, shown at the ROH, which explores his family's Barbadian history. Shahidha Bari hosts.
Stratford Literary Festival 2023
Peter Brathwaite in conversation with Julia Wheeler for Stratford Literary Festival 2023.
