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The John Blanke Project by Michael Ohajuru (Hardback)
£30.00
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781914487484
Published:
27 Mar 2025
Format:
Hardback
Number of pages:
256 pages
Dimensions:
327x255mm
Weight:
0.000kgs
Author:
John Blanke is the first person of African descent in British history for whom we have both an image and a record. He was a Black trumpeter to the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Inspired by this enigmatic figure, Michael Ohajuru invited over 100 artists and historians to imagine John Blanke's world.
The book of the groundbreaking art exhibition, displayed in the British Library, Met New York and Walker in Liverpool
John Blanke is the first person of African descent in British history for whom we have both an image and a record. He was a Black trumpeter to the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII.
Yet, despite the wealth of Tudor archives, we have just two images of John Blanke in the Great Tournament Roll of Westminster and court records of him receiving wages and petitioning for a wage increase and gifts
Inspired by this enigmatic figure, Michael Ohajuru invited over 100 artists and historians to imagine John Blanke's world. Now these images and words - exhibited in the British Museum and the Met in New York, but never displayed on the internet - have been curated in a sumptuous, large art book.
From its startling black and white pages leap out the diverse perspectives of the artists, who with contrasting styles, portray John Blanke variously, among many things, as a trumpeter, a saxophonist, a focused jazz musician, and a stylish trump card.
By turns dazzling and intriguing, these different artistic renditions - along with rap music, poems and prose from historians - create a dazzling permanent embodiment of a noteworthy figure currently marginalised in British history.
About the Author: Michael I Ohajuru holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Open University (2024), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2022), Senior Fellow of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (2014), with honours degrees in Physics (Leeds, 1974) and Art History (Open University, 2008). He retired in 2014 after a 25-year career holding senior positions in international sales and marketing in the data and mobile communications industry. He lives in South London with his partner, the artist Ebun Culwin. He blogs, writes and speaks regularly on the black presence in Renaissance Europe, he has spoken at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the National Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, British Library, National Archives and the Victoria Albert Museum on the subject. In 2010, he founded Image of the Black in London Galleries - a series of gallery tours highlighting the overt and covert black presences to be found in the national art collections in London. He is Project Director and Chief Evangelist of the John Blanke Project, a contemporary Art and Archive project celebrating John Blanke, the Black trumpeter to the courts of Henry VII and Henry VII now in the permanent collections of the National Studies What's Happening in Black British History, a series of workshops fostering creative dialogue between researchers, educationalists (mainstream and supplementary), archivists and curators, and policymakers; a series of 10 workshops were held over five years. He is a founder member of the Black Presence in British BP2 Podcast. Michael I. Ohajuru DUniv, FRSA, Art & Cultural Historian https://about.me/michaelohajuru/
| Number of pages | 256 |
|---|
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