Despite all kinds of objections and obstacles, a black iconography and identity is gradually asserting itself. Many men and women of colour crossed paths with artists and forged relationships with them. The exhibition explores the identity of these neglected figures in the history of modernity and attempts to reinstate their names, reveal their stories, and restore them a visibility. From a stereotype to an individual, from a not recognized figure to a recognized one, this exhibition intends to show this long process and to cast light on one of the most overlooked and least mentioned areas of art history, thus revealing once again how this discipline acts as a mirror to reflect prevailing ideas and sensitivities, and confirming the powerful sense of continuity which unites both the 19th and 20th centuries and the present day. More than fifty years elapsed between the first abolition of slavery in the French colonies and the second abolition proclaimed in April by the fledgling Second Republic. The first abolition decree on 4 February was revolutionary in two respects, granting full French citizenship to emancipated slaves without distinction on the grounds of colour.

By Rianna Jade Parker. Napoleon III responded by assigning the urban planner Baron Haussmann the task of redesigning and modernizing Paris, to make it the crown jewel of Europe. Over 17 years, the capital was ripped and gutted to make an interconnected network of long avenues, wide boulevards, and new bridges, clearing space for landmarks, like the Palais Garnier opera house. The mandate was to see and be seen. Grand fashion houses were established, and magazines around the world presented haute couture.

But the painting is notable for another, largely ignored aspect; the portrayal of the black maid, who we now know was called Laure. Manet not only shows her in contemporary French costume, in marked contrast to the exoticised harem attire more common for black servants in salon paintings of the era, he also gives her almost equal pictorial space to Olympia. In doing so he was drawing attention to a further aspect of contemporary society that bourgeois critics may have preferred to ignore; the presence of a small but highly visible population of free black people who had come to the city following the abolition of slavery in French colonies in Manet painted Laure on three known occasions, with each painting seeming to reveal a growing awareness and understanding of the presence of black people in Paris. In Children in the Tuileries Gardens she is shown as a nanny.

Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St.