On May 21

On this day in ...
... 2001, France enacted a law recognizing enslavement as a crime against humanity. The statute is known as Loi Taubira, in recognition of the efforts of its chief proponent, Christiane Taubira (right). Born in 1952 in Cayenne, French Guiana, Taubira has been a Deputy of France's National Assembly since 1993 and a Member of the European Parliament since 1994. In 2002, she ran unsuccessfully for the French Presidency.
... 1951, in Lower Manhattan, a 3-week art exhibition called the Ninth Street Show opened. It established a New York School of avant garde and other post-World War II artists. Among the many who exhibited were several women. About Elaine de Kooning we've already posted; other women artists at the show included Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell (right) (photo credit), Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, whose painting "Right Bird Left" is above left, Anne Ryan, and Sonia Sekula.

On this day

On March 12, ...
... 1918 (90 years ago today), Elaine Marie Catherine Fried was born in Brooklyn, New York. A student of art, she married the Netherlands-born painter Willem de Kooning in 1943, though the couple spent much of their marriage apart. Elaine de Kooning is known for her own sculpture and painting; in particular, her portraits of luminaries like U.S. President John F. Kennedy (here), not to mention the self-portrait at right. (credit) An art critic as well as an artist, the chain-smoker died from lung cancer in 1989.
... 1938 (70 years ago today), Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, stood clad in a brown stormtrooper uniform, stood in an open car as it drove into Austria's capital, Vienna. The next day he proclaimed that the "Anschluss" -- unification of German-speaking Austria with Nazi Germany -- was complete. Installed to govern the country, now deemed a Third Reich province, was Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who would be hanged following conviction as a war criminal in 1946 by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.