Lusha Nelson
Kykunkor, or The Witch Woman, 1934
Silver print
10 x 8 inches
With photographer's credit stamp and pencil notations verso.
With photographer's credit stamp and pencil notations verso.
This stunning portrait by the important 'forgotten modernist' Lusha Nelson shows the cast of Asadata Dafora's seminal production 'Kyunkor (The Witch Woman). Also included in a small postcard advertising the...
This stunning portrait by the important "forgotten modernist" Lusha Nelson shows the cast of Asadata Dafora's seminal production "Kyunkor (The Witch Woman). Also included in a small postcard advertising the production.
Asadata Dafora was a musician, composer, dancer, and choreographer known for pioneering African dance in the United States. Born in 1980 in British Sierra Leone, Asadata Dafora Horton studied at the Wesleyan School in Freetown and throughout Europe but always retained an appreciation for African studies and culture – marrying his learnings later in his career. After studying opera in Germany and Italy from 1910, Dafora first made it to the United States in 1929 and began the Shongola Oloba troupe with the men he met in the National African Union. In 1934, Dafora wrote his first stage production, Kykunkor (The Witch Woman), a musical which attracted audiences with the intrigue of authentic African storytelling and ritual; garnering reputability for the troupe. The critical success of the performance found the troupe a part of the Federal Theatre Project, a Works Progress Administration project of the New Deal. Dafora became an authority figure in African music and dance and worked with Orson Welles on a wildly successful 1936 production of Macbeth. Often referred to as “Voodoo Macbeth,” the production featured a Black cast and adapted Hatian voudou in place of the Scottish witchcraft of the original play. Dafora returned to his hometown of Freetown in 1960 to relinquish his leadership of the dance troupe to Esther Rolle and became the cultural director of the independent Sierra Leone. He returned to Harlem and died soon after in 1965. A stalwart for African culture, Asadata Dafora is remembered today for introducing Western audiences to a brand new world of African music and dance.
Lusha Nelson was a Latvian-American modernist photographer known for his work in fashion magazines in the 1930s. Obscure to most due to a premature death, Nelson was the mentee of the prolific Edward Steichen and favored by famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His process eschewed retouching in favor of raw, dramatic portraits that captured the likes of the most prominent starlets, artists, and athletes for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Born in Latvia at the turn of the century in 1900, Nelson emigrated to the United States and began his vocation in his twenties when he became the staff photographer for Condé Nast. Some of his portrait subjects include Jesse Owens, Katherine Hepburn, and Diego Rivera; and he also shot documentary photographs of New York and scenes from the Great Depression. At just 30 years old and only six years into a promising career, Nelson’s life was cut short by cancer in 1938. While his skills and reputation were yet to be refined by working wisdom, Nelson took thousands of photographs during his short, yet prolific, time. His work remained mostly unseen until a 2015 retrospective at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma acquired and unveiled an archive of more than 4,000 printed works, negatives, and other related material – establishing the legacy of a forgotten talent.
Asadata Dafora was a musician, composer, dancer, and choreographer known for pioneering African dance in the United States. Born in 1980 in British Sierra Leone, Asadata Dafora Horton studied at the Wesleyan School in Freetown and throughout Europe but always retained an appreciation for African studies and culture – marrying his learnings later in his career. After studying opera in Germany and Italy from 1910, Dafora first made it to the United States in 1929 and began the Shongola Oloba troupe with the men he met in the National African Union. In 1934, Dafora wrote his first stage production, Kykunkor (The Witch Woman), a musical which attracted audiences with the intrigue of authentic African storytelling and ritual; garnering reputability for the troupe. The critical success of the performance found the troupe a part of the Federal Theatre Project, a Works Progress Administration project of the New Deal. Dafora became an authority figure in African music and dance and worked with Orson Welles on a wildly successful 1936 production of Macbeth. Often referred to as “Voodoo Macbeth,” the production featured a Black cast and adapted Hatian voudou in place of the Scottish witchcraft of the original play. Dafora returned to his hometown of Freetown in 1960 to relinquish his leadership of the dance troupe to Esther Rolle and became the cultural director of the independent Sierra Leone. He returned to Harlem and died soon after in 1965. A stalwart for African culture, Asadata Dafora is remembered today for introducing Western audiences to a brand new world of African music and dance.
Lusha Nelson was a Latvian-American modernist photographer known for his work in fashion magazines in the 1930s. Obscure to most due to a premature death, Nelson was the mentee of the prolific Edward Steichen and favored by famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His process eschewed retouching in favor of raw, dramatic portraits that captured the likes of the most prominent starlets, artists, and athletes for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Born in Latvia at the turn of the century in 1900, Nelson emigrated to the United States and began his vocation in his twenties when he became the staff photographer for Condé Nast. Some of his portrait subjects include Jesse Owens, Katherine Hepburn, and Diego Rivera; and he also shot documentary photographs of New York and scenes from the Great Depression. At just 30 years old and only six years into a promising career, Nelson’s life was cut short by cancer in 1938. While his skills and reputation were yet to be refined by working wisdom, Nelson took thousands of photographs during his short, yet prolific, time. His work remained mostly unseen until a 2015 retrospective at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma acquired and unveiled an archive of more than 4,000 printed works, negatives, and other related material – establishing the legacy of a forgotten talent.