s the Jazz age dawned in the early 1920's, African American artists, writers and musicians flocked to a district of Manhattan called Harlem. 'The Mecca of the New Negro' soon became home to a cultural revolution, repercussions of which would be felt around the world, from the USA to Europe and Africa. The rich artistic legacy of the Harlem Renaissance rages from the music of Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith, to the paintings of Aaron Douglas and the poetry of Langston Hughes.

This Web site provides an introduction to the exhibition Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance, curated by David A. Bailey and Richard J. Powell and organised by the Hayward Gallery, London in collaboration with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC., and the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA). The Web site combines images and text to elaborate on some of the key themes in the exhibition:
The Harlem Renaissance, Representing the New Negro, Modernism and Modernity, A Blues Aesthetic, Imaginging Africa, Haiti and Images of Black Nationhood.

The Web site does not seek to be "encyclopaedic" in its scope but rather seeks to provide a brief introduction to the exhibition and its critical and curatorial framework through a small selection of images and soundbites drawn primarily from the exhibition catalogue essays.