dancer and singer
Bundeskunsthalle celebrates Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker meets actor and director Charlie Chaplin in Paris (1953). photo
© -/AP Photo/dpa
She was the first entertainer with Afro-American roots and was very successful in Germany before and after the war. An exhibition commemorates this extraordinary woman.
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was the first female superstar with African American roots, but also a resistance fighter in World War II and a protagonist of the American civil rights movement. The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn is now dedicating a large exhibition to the dancer and singer from May 18th to September 24th. Historical photos and documents, artistic positions, autobiographical writings, clothing, records, magazines and film excerpts from their revues and interviews are on display.
Baker, who is also considered an icon of the LGBT community today, first became known in Germany through her performances in Berlin in the Roaring Twenties. Banned during the Nazi era, she returned several times to the now divided city after the war – both to the west and to the east. A few days after an acclaimed comeback, she succumbed to a stroke in Paris in 1975.