'PRINSESSE TAM-TAM': Josephine Baker in French film poster.

A movie poster advertising Josephine Baker as “Prinsesse Tam-Tam” is both art and social history, its 1935 styling depicting the mystique and beauty of the black film star who won the hearts of the French. That poster and 89 more are on display at the Historic Arkansas Museum in the Smithsonian exhibit “Close Up in Black: African American Film Posters.”
The framed posters, from the Edward Mapp Collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and produced from 1921 to 2001, portray the many faces of black actors in movie history, including the “message movies” of the 1960s, the “blaxpoitation” pictures of the 1970s and the break into all areas of filmmaking in the 1980s. The posters also reflect ongoing social and cultural changes in the way African Americans were cast.
The show runs through Jan. 2.
Art and music to help pay for books — that’s the idea behind “An Evening of Fine Art and Music” to be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, at the William F. Laman Public Library at 2801 Orange St.
The salsa-jazz combo Mosaic will perform and the free event will be catered. Paintings, drawings, sculpture and photography by artists including Joe Barnett, Robert Best, Cathy Burns, V.L. Cox, Todd Crockett, Patrick Cunningham, Tanya Hollifield, DeRue Johnson, Robert L. Jones, Kevin Kresse, Larry Russell, Sherrie Shepherd and Byron Taylor will be for sale.
For more information, call 758-1720.
An exhibit with sole — that’s what’s at the Statehouse Convention Center, where “The Presidential Shoe Display” goes on view Nov. 4, staying in step with the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center. Featured will be Johnston & Murphy shoes handcrafted for 12 presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
Though no shoes made for former President Bill Clinton are on display, the Johnston & Murphy press release notes that Clinton wears a size 13C, the largest size of “modern-day presidents.”
The exhibit runs through Nov. 19.

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