Nordic Utopia: African Americans in the 20th Century 

During the 20th century, African Americans visited, performed, studied, and lived in the Nordic countries…for a variety of reasons: a sense of adventure, love, seeking educational and occupational opportunities, freedom to explore their sexuality, freedom from Jim Crow segregation back home, among many other reasons. Drawing from paintings, photographs, textiles, film, music, and dance, this exhibition captures their journeys as their sense of who they were was transformed through their Nordic encounters. Like Walter Williams’s Southern Landscape, life in the Nordic countries could appear idyllic, but upon examining their stories more closely, like the painting, you begin to see hints of elements of the African American past like cotton fields and a shanty combined with elements in the foreground: fields of flowers, children, a bouquet, butterflies and birds taking flight, hopeful for a better day and opportunities for African Americans in the Nordic countries.

Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century illuminates the untold story of African American visual and performing artists, such as Doug Crutchfield, Herb Gentry, Dexter Gordon, William Henry Johnson, Howard Smith, and Walter Williams, who sought new possibilities, inspiration, and environments in the Nordic countries as an alternative to Paris. This exhibition is the first comprehensive examination of this topic.