In the popular imagination, the history of African American expatriates in Europe tends to begin and end in Paris, focusing on prominent figures like entertainer Josephine Baker and writers James Baldwin and Richard Wright. “Nordic Utopia?” takes visitors beyond Paris to Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and other Nordic cities, introducing them to a less familiar, though no less influential, group of travelers.
Many members of this loose cohort began their international ventures in Paris but were soon unable to resist the pull of the Nordic countries. As Whitmire, a scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says, “African Americans visited, performed, studied and lived in Scandinavia for a variety of reasons: a sense of adventure, love, the pursuit of educational and professional opportunities, and the freedom to explore their sexuality.”
South Carolina-born visual artist William Henry Johnson moved to the City of Light in 1926 to study Modernism and immerse himself in a dynamic creative community. While on an artistic sojourn to the French fishing village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, where he produced several stylized paintings of its landscape, Johnson met and fell in love with Danish textile artist Holcha Krake. The couple married and eventually moved to southern Denmark, spending most of the 1930s in the southern coastal town of Kerteminde, whose houses, streets, windmills and harbor became the focus of much of Johnson’s work.
Expressionist painter Herbert Gentry followed a similar route. Born in Pittsburgh and raised in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, Gentry served during World War II, then moved to Paris in 1946 with the help of the G.I. Bill. An invitation to exhibit his work in Copenhagen in 1958 led to a five-year stay in the Danish capital, which was in turn followed by a move to Gothenburg, Sweden, with his Swedish wife and their son.
By the mid-20th century, the Nordic countries enjoyed a reputation as not only havens from the rampant racism of the U.S. but also centers of dynamic artistic production. They soon became destinations in and of themselves. Painter Walter Williams traveled to Denmark with the support of a fellowship, while artist Howard Smith accepted an invitation to travel from Philadelphia to Helsinki as part of a U.S.-sponsored cultural festival that quickly led to commissions for mixed-media creations. He regularly collaborated with Finnish textile and ceramics firms, producing a variety of floral prints, animal figurines and ceramics.