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Eusebia Cosme photograph collection

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Collection Data

Description
The Eusebia Cosme Photograph Collection mainly depicts aspects of her public life and professional career as a diseuse and actress, between the 1930s to the early 1970s. The collection consists of individual and group portraits and candid shots of Cosme, as well as her friends and colleagues; views of her recitals, plays, and radio and television broadcasts; some views of social gatherings and travels; depictions of her art exhibits; and publicity stills of her movie performances. The collection does not include any views of her early life and is very limited in depicting her personal life.
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1930 - 1979 (Questionable)
Library locations
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division
Shelf locator: Sc Photo Eusebia Cosme Collection
Topics
Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975
Genres
Photographs
Notes
Biographical/historical: Eusebia Adriana Cosme y Almanza, diseuse and actress, was born in Santiago de Cuba around 1911. Orphaned as a minor, Cosme was befriended by a Santiago family who took her to Havana where she received her formal education in music, piano theory, elocution and declamation. Her career as an interpreter of Afro-Antillian verse began in the early 1930s when she recited for the Spanish actor José González Marín, who later sponsored her appearance at Havana's Teatro Payet. Her recitals were interpretive performances that featured mostly the works of Hispanic poets who wrote "poesias negras" (poetry with a black theme). This included work by Cuban Félix B. Caignet, Puerto Rican Luis Palés Matos, and Venezuelan Andrés Eloy Blanco, as well as Americans Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar. In 1937, she left Cuba to become an international concert performer, travelling throughout South America, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States. Cosme, upon leaving Cuba, settled in New York City where, during the 1940s, she had a radio program, "The Eusebia Cosme Show," on the Columbia Broadcasting System's "La Cadena de las Américas." In 1955 she began her acting career with a Mexican acting company and appeared in a few plays, including "El Derecho de Nacer" (The Right to be Born). She began her film acting career in 1965 in Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker," and subsequently appeared in six Mexican movies, including the film version of "El Derecho de Nacer" (1966) and "Mama Dolores" (1970). By that time she had moved to Mexico, still gave concert performances abroad, composed music and did abstract painting. Cosme died in Miami, Florida, sometime in the mid-1970s.
Statement of responsibility: Collection contains work by Narcy Studios, Angelo, ArmandoMoreno, Magana and O. Salas, among others.
Physical Description
Extent: 403 items (.8 lin. ft., 3 boxes) 151 photographic prints : silver gelatin, b ; 21 x 26 cm. and smaller. 110 photographic prints : silver gelatin, b, some hand-col. ; 36 x 28 cm. and smaller. 53 photographic prints : silver gelatin, b ; 13 x 18 cm. and smaller. 74 photographic prints : silver gelatin, b, some hand-col. ; 18 x 13 cm. and smaller. 4 photographic prints : col. ; 13 x 18 cm. and smaller. 9 photographic postcards : b ; 14 x 9 cm. 1 photomechanical print : halftone, b ; 16 x 13 cm. 1 clipping : halftone, b ; 13 x 8 cm. 1 photomechanical print : col. ; 32 x 24 cm.
Type of Resource
Still image
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b14985288
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 371c98b0-c60b-012f-58b3-58d385a7bc34
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