First black model in Paris dies

NEW YORK, July 23 (UPI) -- Dorothea Towles Church, the first successful black model in Paris, has died in New York at 83.

Church died on July 7, The New York Times reported.

Her death was confirmed by Michael Henry Adams, a curator at the Museum of the City of New York, where Church is among those to be featured in an exhibition called "Black Style Now," opening on Sept. 7.

Church's success was a historic achievement in an industry that had been especially resistant to using any but white models to represent beauty on magazine covers, advertisements and runways. Church is responsible for breaking down some of those barriers and was revered in France during the five years she modeled there, the Times said.

Church was born on July 26, 1922, in Texarkana, Tex., the seventh of eight children in a farming family. She studied biology at Wiley College in Marshall, Tex., and planned to go into medicine, but when her mother died, she accepted the invitation of a wealthy uncle to live with him in Los Angeles.

She completed a master's degree in education at the University of Southern California.