Per an exhibit plaque:
In 1935 Josephine Baker (1906-1975) returned to the U.S. for the first time in ten years. Hotels and restaurants refused to accommodate her, and reviewes of her performances were lackluster.
By contrast, Baker received a hero's welcome on arriving back in France. In interviews, she expressed deep gr atitude to the French people 'to whom I owe being Josephine Baker'. The exuberant poster shown above celebrates Baker's appearance in a show written specifically for her. It commemorated the 50th anniversary of the famous Parisian music hall.
Baker became a French citizen in 1937. The racism she experienced in the U.S., however, awakened her political consciousness. In 1963, she returned to the U.S. to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She told the crowd, 'I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad'.
Per Wikipedia:
Michel Gyarmathy ( 1908 in Austria-Hungary - 1996) was a Hungarian director and costume designer.
His career began at the Király Theater in Budapest . In 1933 he emigrated to Paris and became a director, costume designer and technical director at the world-famous Folies Bergère revue theater, where Josephine Baker, Maurice Chevalier and Marlène Charell, among others, performed.
The director, known in France as Monsieur Michel, also published poems that repeatedly recalled his former homeland Hungary or past friends and love affairs ("Mosolyok és könnyek" / roughly translated in German as "Smiles and Tears" Paris 1970).
Gyarmathy died on October 31, 1996 and was given an honorary grave in his adopted homeland of France due to his popularity.
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