In 1996 Taschen Verlag GmbH, renowned for their beautifully designed and reasonably priced art books, joined forces with the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany to produce a spectacular, 760-page illustrated catalogue of the highlights from the Museum’s photographic collection. Among the hundreds of historically significant photographs that appeared in 20th Century Photography, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, three especially enthralling photographs graced the book’s front, back, and spine: photo-journalist Fritz Henle’s 1943 portrait of Nieves, one of Diego Rivera’s Mexican models; surrealist photographer Man Ray’s 1930 photographic detail Lips on Lips; and Hamburg, Germany-based fashion photographer Charlotte March’s 1966 photograph of African American fashion model Donyale Luna. Taschen’s art director, Mark Thomson, placed Charlotte March’s Donyale Luna with Earrings for “twen” on the book’s spine, which gave her photograph a conspicuous place on likely bookshelves and, because of Luna’s captivating visage and gaze, empowered the photograph to compel bookstore browsers to return Luna’s look and pick up the book.
This essay considers Charlotte March’s legendary photograph, paying special attention to her subject, fashion model and actress Donyale Luna (1946-1979), and Luna’s extraordinary presence within the fashion industry and the photographic enterprise, circa 1966. By the time of the creation of Donyale Luna with Earrings for “twen,” Luna had already appeared on the covers of Queen, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, and was photographed in haute couture clothing by such legendary fashion photographers as Richard Avedon and David Bailey. Describing Donyale Luna in 1966 as “. . . the completely new image of the Negro woman,” a commentator in Time magazine further remarked that “fashion finds itself in an instrumental position for changing history, however slightly, for [in the industry’s promotion of Donyale Luna] it is about to bring out into the open the veneration, the adoration, the idolization of the Negro . . . .” March’s Donyale Luna with Earring for “twen” took this pronouncement a step further, interpolating into the alleged veneration a corporeal rejoinder: Luna’s forceful, subliminally militant counter-gaze, directed towards a world that, despite its adoration of her, struggled with the idea of black beauty and black agency.
“Who’s Zoomin’ Who?: The Eyes of Donyale Luna,” Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 38-39 (November 2016): 14-21. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-3641634
