BAKER, Josephine.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Nine issues of Revues Folies Bergère. First nine issues of the Revue, the dazzling souvenir programme for the famous cabaret, including those for Josephine Baker's first appearances there in 1926; the issue for that year featuring her on the cover, from which she smiles though the cobalt blue "peekaboo" wrapper's gilded sunburst.The 1926 and 1927 Revue illustrate Baker's career at the venue. The former features a double-page spread for the dance number "Fatou" - in which she sports the sensational "banana" outfit - and several other spreads, including one capturing another famous costume: "Éventail de plumes". The following year's issue pictures her in the musical sketch "Plantation" with the "Thomson Jazz Orchestra" in which she appears wearing patched, short-legged coveralls. A colour image shows her in a fabulous costume composed simply of a feather fantail and pearls; another page features her dancing in the same costume in a skit contrasting a "Hostellerie sous Louis XIII" and "La Même en 1927" with an American bar and African American jazz band; she's also front and centre in the double-page group shot of the whole company. Singer Jean Sablon tells the story that a friend overheard two people ask a Parisian paper seller if he still had the "1926 souvenir programme of the Folies-Bèrgere with Josephine Baker? [this was in 1930]. The news dealer said no, 'I never have enough. As soon as I get some, they're gone'" (Baker & Chase, p. 167)."In April 1926, when Baker debuted i

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