RACES
Nude Negro
In response to an invitation, Antonio Salemme, Manhattan sculptor, shipped to the Philadelphia Art Alliance last month for exhibition a large, black bronze figure of Paul Robeson, famed Negro actor and singer, posed nude.† Never shown, the statue was promptly shipped back to Sculptor Salemme with this explanation: "The executive committee [of the Art Alliance] expressed their apprehension of the consequences of exhibiting such a nude figure in a public square, especially the figure of a Negro, as the colored problem seems to be unusually great in Philadelphia."
Remarked Sculptor Salemme: "We sculptors...
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