June 17 - Novmber 23, 2008
Black Cinema: The Vintage Years is a fascinating exhibition that will chronicle the history and turbulent journey of the black film industry and the black actors’ and directors’ struggles for equality during the 20th century. More than 50 rare and important original screen-printed and stone-lithographed posters from Separate Cinema Archives will be on view. These posters, produced by independent film companies, are now acknowledged as “an important visual document from a brief time when this separate cinema flourished.”
The films, known as “race pictures,” paralleled familiar Hollywood fare-melodramas, action pictures, westerns, and, with the coming of sound, musicals--but were produced by black owned and operated film companies, directed by black directors, and starred black actors, some of whom also found parts in Hollywood films. But where Hollywood often cast black actors as farcical stereotypes, in the “race films” these actors were seldom given opportunities for the full range of their talents as dramatic actors, inventive comics, singers of great power and dancers of grace.
Join us for a FREE reception on Sunday, July 13 from 2-4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
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