A Face Without a Name, No Longer: The National Gallery of Art Identifies a Kwame Brathwaite Model After 54 Years
For 54 years, the woman in the photograph hanging at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., had no name. Now she does: Manasie Ree Horn, a model from Mobile, Alabama, whose portrait was taken by the Brooklyn-born photographer Kwame Brathwaite in 1972.
The identification came about by chance. A cousin of Horn's son, Zane Horn, spotted the photograph while visiting the Getty Center in Los Angeles, which was hosting the NGA's travelling exhibition 'Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985.' The cousin recognised the woman and contacted Zane, who confirmed the sitter was his mother. He gathered supporting materials and sent them to the National Gallery of Art, which renamed the work accordingly — from 'Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace)' to 'Untitled (Portrait of Manasie Ree Horn with Reels as Necklace)' Artnet News.
Horn never lived to see it. She died in 2002, three decades before the photograph she sat for would carry her name on a museum wall.
The story of how she got there is a distinctly American one. After graduating from high school and attending community college in Mobile, Horn left for New York to pursue modelling. She signed with the Grace Del Marco Modeling Agency, one of the first agencies in the United States to represent Black models Artnet News. Zane Horn told FOX10 that his mother had once been told her legs were too skinny for the industry — and that she is now in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. FOX10.
Brathwaite would likely have approved of the rename. He habitually named his sitters in his titles — as in 'Untitled (Clara Lewis Buggs with Yellow Flower)' (1962) and 'Untitled (Nomsa Brath with Earrings Designed by Carolee Prince)' (1964). Both Buggs and Nomsa Brath were Grandassa Models, the troupe of Black models Brathwaite organised as part of the 'Black Is Beautiful' movement he co-founded, which championed natural African beauty at a time when mainstream American fashion standards rarely made room for it.
Brathwaite, who was of Barbadian descent, came to photography through music. In 1956, inspired by the Black nationalist teachings of Marcus Garvey, he co-founded the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS). He picked up a camera after seeing photographs taken in the dim light of a club during an AJASS-organised event Art Institute of Chicago. The official Kwame Brathwaite Archive now preserves over 10,000 images spanning six decades.
Horn's face has one more stop ahead. She features in advertisements for the final edition of the 'Photography and the Black Arts Movement' exhibition, now on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson through 8 November.
Not bad for a woman who was once told her legs wouldn't do.
