Rediscovering Black Portraiture

Find out how a moment of lockdown inspiration started artist Peter Brathwaite on a journey rediscovering the history of Black subjects in Western art and literature.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as much of the work of a classical baritone was put on hold, Royal College of Music alumni Peter Brathwaite started a new project – one that would take him back through hundreds of years of painted portraiture in a quest elevate the Black lives ignored by the canon of Western Art.

Using household props and objects important to his own ancestry Brathwaite researched and reimagined more than one hundred portraits of Black sitters created over the last 500 years. As well drawing huge interest on social media, the project allowed Peter to draw parallels with research into his own family history and imagine these lives in the face of the silence of history.

Ahead of the publication of a book – Rediscovering Black Portraiture – which collects together fifty of his recreations, Peter will discuss his work and its inspirations with Farah Karim-Cooper, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Kings College London and Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe.

During their conversation Farah will draw parallels with her own work putting black characters back into the works and worlds of Shakespeare, as discussed in her new book – The Great White Bard

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