Madame E Toussaint Welcome

Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Lucy Powell tells the story of five brilliant women, all the siblings of renowned achievers in the arts and science, whose own success was overlooked – either by their own epoch, or by the annals of history ever since. Virginia Woolf famously reflected on the neglect of brilliant women with her fiction of "Shakespeare’s Sister”.

Lucy considers how the life of Madame E Toussaint Welcome, sister to Harlem renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee. ‘Madame’ - or Jenny Louise - once described herself as ‘the foremost female artist of the race’. She was one of the first African American film directors, and one of the very few women directing films in the silent era. She established an art school, a photographic studio, a film studio, and a documentary that advanced the civil rights movement. And yet, as Lucy discovers, despite her extraordinary achievements, she and her work lie largely forgotten.

Produced by Debbie Kilbride
A Tempo & Talker production