“Beauty Unadorned: “Fire!!” and the Harlem Renaissance”

“Beauty Unadorned” will be on view at Beinecke Library from Oct. 19, 2026 through May 30, 2027.

Beauty Unadorned: “Fire!!” and the Harlem Renaissance celebrates the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance experimental magazine “Fire!!” The first and only issue appeared on November 15, 1926 and is remembered for its transgression of the era’s social codes, its formal experimentation, and its unabashed manifesto embracing Black art for art’s sake.

“Fire!!” reflected the ethos and vision of the younger generation of the New Negro movement — including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Wallace Thurman — who insisted on their artistic freedom, without concern for the older generation’s preoccupation with respectability. The exhibition showcases correspondence, early written drafts, photographs, and artworks from these writers and thinkers as well as other contributors and friends, drawn from Beinecke Library’s James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection.

Curator: Melissa Barton, American Literature

Please join us on Thursday, November 12, 2026 for the opening celebration of “Beauty Unadorned: “Fire!!” and the Harlem Renaissance,” as well as the exhibitions Cave Canem: A Home for Black Poetry, and Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique: William Hogarth's Progress Prints. Remarks begin at 4:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.