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1934, Charles Henry Alston, Girl in a Red Dress -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

From the exhibition label: Art historian Richard Powell has described Girl in a Red Dress as an exemplary portrayal of the New Negro woman who is "defiantly black, beautiful, and feminine, yet also unsettled, mysterious, and utterly modern." Alston, a foundational figure of the Harlem Renaissance, depicts the subject in a way that synthesizes the aesthetics of African art (in this case Fang reliquary busts) and modernist pictorial flatness. Her graceful, elongated neck and sculptural face, together with her stylized modern attire and contemplative gaze to the side, convey an enigmatic affect in which she seems oblivious to the viewer.

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Uploaded on April 26, 2024
Taken on April 26, 2024