Charles Holman-Black was a singer and painter, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.McProud, Laura. American Students' Census Paris, 1903. and lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Paris, France.Weber, Nicholas Fox. The Clarks of Cooperstown. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York, 2007. "The friend was the Indianapolis-born baritone Charles Holman-Black...". He performed as a baritone throughout the United States and Europe,Werner's Voice Magazine: "Our Singers in Paris: Americans and Others Who Are Studying Singing in Paris This Year." Frank T. Charles, July 1892. including the People's Palace in LondonThe Palace Journal: Programme of Concert, 13 May 1892., New York City, and Binghamton, New York.Indianapolis Journal, "People and Society," 26 October 1897. "Mr. Charles Holman-Black, who has been spending two months with his parents. Professor and Mrs. J. S. Black, left last night for the East. He will sing Thursday evening in New York and Friday evening in Binghamton, N. Y., and will visit friends in Philadelphia and New York until he sails for his home in Paris, the middle of November.
Holman-Black was considered a musical prodigy by his professors as a child. The son of noted music professor J. S. Black of Indianapolis, Holman-Black was initially trained by his father. He learned piano at age seven, counterpoint and harmony at age ten, and was a prominent church organist by age twelve. While a student in New York, Holman-Black toured Europe before accepting several roles in touring operas across the United States and Canada.McProud, American Students' Census Paris, 1903. Following his move to Paris, he was taught by the Italian tenor Signor SeveriniDunn, Jacob Platt. Greater Indianapolis; the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes. Lewis Publishing Company, 1910, Chicago, Illinois., Jean-Baptiste Faure, and Edmund Duvernoy at the Conservatoire de Paris, and he became the first American invited to perform for the famed La Trompette chamber music society.Dunn, Jacob Piatt. Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, p117. "[Holman-Black] was the first American invited to sing in the concerts of "La Trompette," and soon became known in other continental countries, as also at London."
Munsey's Magazine described Holman-Black as "the best known salon singer in Europe," with "a baritone of great compass and thrilling sweetness,"Munsey's Magazine, Vol 18 Iss 2: "A Singer Who Can Sing." while a profile in Werner's Voice praised Holman-Black's "style [as] perfect, phrasing broad, enunciation unequalled, and voice showing the perfect cultivation of a grand school." Werner's Voice Magazine: "Our Singers in Paris: Americans and Others Who Are Studying Singing in Paris This Year." Frank T. Charles, July 1892. One Parisian critic in 1895 wrote that Holman-Black "has made for himself in Paris a position that is his own and is much envied. A singer who has been applauded in New York and in London, Holman Black has wished to receive the consecration that Paris only can give."The Musical Visitor 1895-03: Vol 24 Iss 3
Holman-Black was the recipient of the Ordre des Palmes académiques in 1904 for his literary contributions,Monthly Musical Record, 8. D. C. Marcwest. "Letter from Paris." June 1904.The Musician. "European Letter," Orton Bradley. July 1904, Vol IX, No. 7. and became a member of the Société des Grandes Auditions Musicales in 1909.The Musical Courier. Vol 58 Iss 26. During World War I, he volunteered with the Red Cross to provide supplies to soldiers at Dinard, France.Indianapolis News, 13 March 1913: "Former Indianapolis Man Giving Aid to the Soldiers."Dunn, Indiana and Indianans.
He resided in Paris, France, with his adopted brotherBoston Globe, 24 Jan 1930. "Attleboro Artist is Dead at Paris." "[Holman's] process was rapid and his first work, exhibited in the Paris Salon, was a portrait in oils of Charles Holman-Black, noted baritone of Paris who afterward became a brother by adoption or Mr Holman, under French law and partnerWeber. "[Holman-Black] and his half-brother, the Boston-born painter Frank Holman, lived in an open homosexual relationship in an apartment on the avenue de Breteuil, a wide street near Les Invalides."Carr, Carolyn Kinder. Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair. University Press of New England, 1993. "...another will, that of Frank Holman, revealed that Charles Holman-Black, who was identified as Holman's brother in early twentieth-century biographical accounts, and who shared his Paris house until Holman's death in 1930, was actually his lifelong companion.", painter Frank Holman, where they owned a house and studio in Faubourg Saint-Germain and played host to several European and North American artists.McProud, American Students' Census Paris, 1903.
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