African American Visual Artists in France

This paper presents a panorama of the presence of African-American artists in France over the last 30 years or so: from 1979, when I met Michel Fabre, under whose direction I wrote my doctoral dissertation – completed in 1984 – up to and including my participation in Michel and Geneviève Fabre’s activities with the Cercle d’études afro-américaines. I have divided this time into three periods, all predicated on the extraordinary advent of Basquiat’s art in France in the late 1980s. These perio...