Hot Chocolates

Media - 1998.128 - SAAM-1998.128_1 - 45216
Copied Theresa Bernstein, Hot Chocolates, ca. 1919-1928, oil on canvas, 30 1⁄4 x 40 in. (76.8 x 101.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Girard Jackson, 1998.128

Artwork Details

Title
Hot Chocolates
Artist
Date
ca. 1919-1928
Location
Dimensions
30 1⁄4 x 40 in. (76.8 x 101.6 cm.)
Markings
lower right in brown oil: TBernstein backing verso upper left in pencil on brown paper: no/to/L2xP./maybe/(illegible)/GOLD
Credit Line
Gift of Girard Jackson
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Keywords
  • Group
  • Figure group
  • African American
  • Performing arts — theater — performer
  • Recreation — theater
  • Architecture Interior — civic — theater
Object Number
1998.128
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1998.128

Artwork Description

Theresa Bernstein often painted urban scenes and everyday people at play throughout the 1920s, finding inspiration in New York’s music venues. The Hot Chocolates jazz revue started in a Harlem nightclub, Connie’s Inn, and then moved to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre. Over the course of its production, Hot Chocolates featured notable jazz performers Fats Waller, Edith Wilson, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong in his Broadway debut. This painting’s lively composition and rich colors capture the syncopated elements of jazz, as well as the boisterous mood of the show itself. As Harlem Renaissance gossip columnist Geraldyn Dismond wrote in 1929, some parts of Hot Chocolates could "make even a flapper blush."