Med blicken på modellen : Pierre Louis Alexandre i verk av Konstakademiens elever 1878-1903

Sammanfattning: Abstract The subject of the thesis concerns visual representations of the African diaspora in Swedish art history. The focus is on paintings by students at the Royal Swedish Academy for Fine Arts 1878–1903 for which the dockworker and artists’ model Pierre Louis Alexandre (1844–1902) posed. Twelve paintings are selected for visual analysis. Drawing on a theoretical framework provided by postcolonial studies and critical visual culture studies, the thesis investigates how Alexandre lent his body to visual types and representations, as well as how he himself emerges through these paintings. The thesis arrives at the following conclusions: Alexandre lent his body to several figures and representations constructed through contemporary orientalist ideas concerning race and the “Orient”. However, he can also be seen depicted as figures of the male worker in a modern Stockholm. Additionally, some of these images can be interpreted as the model himself emerging, thus enabling a claim to existence as an individual and subject, historical and visual.