New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934.

New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934 by Teresa Leininger-Miller Rutgers University Press, March 2001, $32.00 ISBN 0-8135-2811-9

This major study focuses on the work and careers of African American artists

in Paris during the period between the world wars. It makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the development of black art and artists in the twentieth century. Richly researched, New Negro Artists in Paris peers deeply into the lives and work of six artists: Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Palmer Hay&n, Hale Woodruff, Archibald J. Motley Jr., Augusta Savage and Albert Alexander Smith, all of whom spent time in Paris during the 1920s and early 1930s. It is a microscopic view of the world illuminated by Tyler Stovall's Paris Noir (Houghton Mifflin, 1996). While that book covered the lives of black Americans in Paris over eight decades, Leininger-Miller's book has a sharper focus; it gives us a closer look, uncovering and highlighting details which Stovall had left out.

Using excerpts from diaries, correspondence, French and American newspapers as well as other archival material, New Negro Artists in Paris closely charts these artists' day-to-day lives. The result is an intimate view of how the artists lived (and often times starved) while pursuing their art. Aided by a marvellous selection of black-and-white and color illustrations, the book portrays lives that are exhilarating while sometimes heartbreaking.

The book also places the work of these artists in the broader context of African American and twentieth-century art movements. It is required reading for those who desire a fuller understanding of black artists and American culture during these important decades.

Geoffrey Jacques is the author of the essay, "Listening to Jazz," in American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press).