Description

Smooth, curved lines and elongated figures dominate the dance floor of this lithograph by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias. Having immigrated to New York City in 1923 at age 19, Covarrubias was inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual and cultural movement helmed by Black New Yorkers throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Through his prints published in periodicals such as Vanity Fair, Covarrubias celebrated and made visible the styles of dance first popularized in Harlem jazz clubs. Here, his figures are fluid in motion. The contrast between their exaggerated, curvilinear bodies and the straight lines of the floor panels suggests graceful movement and a passion for dance!