Exhibition
The Music Is Black: A British Story
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Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts
Join curator and art historian Adrienne L Childs PhD, in conversation with V&A curator Dr Madeleine Haddon, as they explore how decorative arts shaped ideas of Blackness in 18th to 19th-century European visual culture.
We examine objects—porcelain figurines, clocks, torchères, furniture—that used the “blackamoor” motif, and consider how these luxury items helped circulate stylised images of the African body across elite spaces. These objects speak to a taste for exoticism, but also reveal deeper tensions: the Black body, often enslaved and subjugated, was also cast as a symbol of opulence and refinement. Adrienne discusses the codes and contradictions embedded in these designs, and reflect on how they operated within the theatre of sumptuous living. This is a space for thoughtful conversation, visual exploration, and critical reflection on how art, labour, and identity intersect in the decorative arts.
You will have an opportunity to acquire a signed copy of Adrienne's book Ornamental Blackness, which is the first of its kind to survey how 18th to 19th century European decorative arts represent the Black figure.
Adrienne L. Childs is an award-winning art historian and curator. Her current book is Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts was published by Yale University Press. She is Senior Consulting Curator at The Phillips Collection in Washington DC. Childs is co-curator of the exhibition Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest. Recent exhibitions include Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM at the Montclair Art Museums and The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sex and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture for the Henry Moore Institute. She guest curated the exhibition Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, 2020, at the Phillips Collection. Childs is currently curating an exhibition on the American painter Beauford Delaney. She has published widely on race and representation in European art as well as African American art. Childs served as curator at the David C. Driskell Center. She was awarded the 2022 Driskell Prize by the High Museum for her contributions to the field of African American art. Last fall Childs served as Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Madeleine Haddon is Senior Curator of V&A East, where she leads curatorial projects across V&A East Storehouse and Museum. An art historian and curator, her work focuses on exhibitions and scholarship that explore transhistorical and cross-cultural dialogues. She has held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Princeton University Art Museum, and was formerly a Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Recent exhibitions include Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library at the Hispanic Society in New York, and Matisse: The Red Studio at The Museum of Modern Art. Her writing has recently featured in catalogues for De Profundis: Oscar Wilde (2024), Travel, Respond, Assemble: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Betye Saar (2023), Murillo: From Heaven to Earth (2022), and The Sublime in Nature (2021). She completed her PhD at Princeton University where her dissertation titled Local Color: Race, Gender and Spanishness in European Painting, 1855–1927 was supported by a Fulbright Award. Dr. Haddon serves on the board of the Public Arts Trust of India and on advisory committees for Harvard Art Museums, CORA Foundation, Athena Art Foundation, and Photo London.
You will have an opportunity to acquire a signed copy of Adrienne's book Ornamental Blackness, which is the first of its kind to survey how 18th to 19th century European decorative arts represent the Black figure.
Adrienne L. Childs is an award-winning art historian and curator. Her current book is Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts was published by Yale University Press. She is Senior Consulting Curator at The Phillips Collection in Washington DC. Childs is co-curator of the exhibition Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest. Recent exhibitions include Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM at the Montclair Art Museums and The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sex and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture for the Henry Moore Institute. She guest curated the exhibition Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, 2020, at the Phillips Collection. Childs is currently curating an exhibition on the American painter Beauford Delaney. She has published widely on race and representation in European art as well as African American art. Childs served as curator at the David C. Driskell Center. She was awarded the 2022 Driskell Prize by the High Museum for her contributions to the field of African American art. Last fall Childs served as Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Madeleine Haddon is Senior Curator of V&A East, where she leads curatorial projects across V&A East Storehouse and Museum. An art historian and curator, her work focuses on exhibitions and scholarship that explore transhistorical and cross-cultural dialogues. She has held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Princeton University Art Museum, and was formerly a Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Recent exhibitions include Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library at the Hispanic Society in New York, and Matisse: The Red Studio at The Museum of Modern Art. Her writing has recently featured in catalogues for De Profundis: Oscar Wilde (2024), Travel, Respond, Assemble: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Betye Saar (2023), Murillo: From Heaven to Earth (2022), and The Sublime in Nature (2021). She completed her PhD at Princeton University where her dissertation titled Local Color: Race, Gender and Spanishness in European Painting, 1855–1927 was supported by a Fulbright Award. Dr. Haddon serves on the board of the Public Arts Trust of India and on advisory committees for Harvard Art Museums, CORA Foundation, Athena Art Foundation, and Photo London.
A detailed event programme to follow.
Header image: Stand, late 17th Century, Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire.