Black Studies: Photography

Reflections in Black: a History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present by Deborah Willis; Robin D. G. Kelley (Introduction by) Shows that the history of black photographers intertwines with the story of African American life, as seen through photographs ranging from antebellum weddings and 1960s protest marches, to portraits of contemporary black celebrities.

Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance by Miriam Thaggert Focusing on the years from 1922 to 1938, this book revisits an important moment in black cultural history to explore how visual elements were used in poems, novels, and photography to undermine existing stereotypes. Miriam Thaggert identifies and analyzes an early form of black American modernism characterized by a heightened level of experimentation with visual and verbal techniques for narrating and representing blackness.

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People Shows that the history of black photographers intertwines with the story of African American life, as seen through photographs ranging from antebellum weddings and 1960s protest marches, to portraits of contemporary black celebrities.

MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora by Laylah Amatullah Barrayan (editor) Adama Delphine Fawundu (editor) MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora is an exclusive and commemorative publication committed to establishing and representing a collective voice of women photographers of African descent. The inaugural issue of MFON features over 100 women photographers across the Diaspora.

Different: a Historical Context: Contemporary Photographers and Black Identity by Stuart Hall; Mark Sealy A study of black identity. It is a story, told in pictures and words, of contemporary black artists exploring issues of their own identity in photography.

Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography by Deborah Willis (Editor) In 18 essays, black writers, scholars and critics reflect on individual photographs-often a family snapshot-to address questions of black identity.

Picturing Children: Photographs from the National Museum of African American History and Culture by Konwill Bunch Trethewey; Ivory Toldson The fourth volume in the series, 'Picturing Children', features a diverse selection of photographs: spontaneous records of intimate family moments, playtime and communal activities as well as posed portraits. Photographers include Henry Clay Anderson, Wayne F. Miller, Joe Schwartz, Jamal Shabazz, Milton Williams and Ernest C. Withers.

Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Deborah Willis; Barbara Krauthamer In this book, photography historian Deborah Willis and historian Barbara Krauthamer have amassed nearly 150 photographs--some never before published--from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration.

The Black Female Body: a Photographic History by Deborah Willis (Photographer); Carla Williams The Black Female Body offers a stunning array of familiar and many virtually unknown photographs. Willis and Williams show how photographs reflected Western culture's fascination with black women's bodies, reinforcing beliefs about racial differences and hierarchies. The authors also show how the powerful images created by twentieth-century photographers increasingly challenged these false beliefs

Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self by Coco Fusco; Brian Wallis By bringing together a provocative selection of essays and images, Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self addresses the issues of nation, race, and selfhood and how they are depicted in ways that are challenging and informative, prompting readers to consider the impact of photography on our everyday lives.

Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats by Michael Cunningham; Craig Marberry; Maya Angelou (Foreword by) A series of fifty black-and-white photographs, complemented by interviews with the subjects, explores the role of the church hat as a reflection of both personal style and a cherished African American tradition.

Portraiture & the Harlem Renaissance : the Photographs of James L. Allen by Camara Dia Holloway Published in conjunction with the exhibition at Yale University Art Gallery 19 January-11 April 1999

Listening to Images by Tina M. Campt Tina M. Campt explores a way of listening closely to photography, engaging with lost archives of historically dismissed photographs of black subjects taken throughout the black diaspora. Engaging with photographs through sound, Campt looks beyond what one usually sees and attunes her senses to the other affective frequencies through which these photographs register. She hears in these photos-which range from late nineteenth-century ethnographic photographs of rural African women and photographs taken in an early twentieth-century Cape Town prison to postwar passport photographs in Birmingham, England and 1960s mug shots of the Freedom Riders - a quiet intensity and quotidian practices of refusal. Originally intended to dehumanize, police, and restrict their subjects, these photographs convey the softly buzzing tension of colonialism, the low hum of resistance and subversion, and the anticipation and performance of a future that has yet to happen. Engaging with discourses of fugitivity, black futurity, and black feminist theory, Campt takes these tools of colonialism and repurposes them, hearing and sharing their moments of refusal, rupture, and imagination.

The Notion of Family by LaToya Ruby Frazier; Dennis C. Dickerson The Notion of Family, offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America's small towns, as embodied by her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political-- an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region.

The Testament Project Vol. 1 by Kris Graves "The Testament Project is an exploration and re-conception of the contemporary black experience in America. The first part of this series deals with black men, who are portrayed in the extreme- either as very rich or very poor, they are demonized, infantilized, ridiculed, idolized or hyper-sexualized; and within the art canon there is a noticeable scarcity of black male representation.

Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal by Hank Willis Thomas; Julia Dolan Copublished by Aperture and the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, to accompany Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal, an exhibition organized by the Portland Art Museum and curated by Julia Dolan and Sara Krajewski, on view October 2019-January 2020.

Lorna Simpson by Thelma Golden Photo-based artist and filmmaker Lorna Simpson is considered one of the key representatives of Black-American visual culture. Emerging in the 1980s, Lorna Simpson was in 1993 the first African-American woman ever to show in the Venice Biennale and to have a solo exhibition in the 'Projects' series of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video by Kathryn E. Delmez (Editor) The work of contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems hits hard with a powerful mix of lived life and social commentary. Since the late 1970s, her photographs, films, and installations have become known for presenting realistic and authentic images of African Americans while confronting themes of race, gender, and class. This book, the first major survey of Weems's career, traces the artist's commitment to addressing issues of social justice through her artwork.

Roy DeCarava: Photographs by Roy DeCarava; James Alinder (Editor); Sherry DeCarava (Introduction by) A collection of photographs depicting everyday life in New York City by the first Black artist to receive a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

Van Der Zee, photographer, 1886-1983 by Deborah Willis-Thomas; Rodger C. Birt (Contribution by) The career of the African-American photographer James Van Der Zee spanned 80 years. Van Der Zee is best remembered as the eyes of the Harlem Renaissance, and this book reproduces some of the thousands of photographs he took between the wars in New York's Harlem.

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama = Hail the Dark Lioness by Zanele Muholi; Renée Mussai (Interviewer) The book features over ninety of Muholi’s evocative self-portraits, each image drafted from material props in Muholi’s immediate environment. These portraits reflect the journey, self-image, and possibilities of a black woman in today’s global society. A powerfully arresting collection of work, Muholi’s radical statements of identity, race, and resistance are a direct response to contemporary and historical racisms.

Muse: Mickalene Thomas - Photographs by Mickalene Thomas Mickalene Thomas, known for her large-scale, multitextured and rhinestone-encrusted paintings of domestic interiors and portraits, identifies the photographic image as a defining touchstone for her practice. Thomas began to photograph herself and her mother as a student at Yale, studying under David Hilliard—a pivotal experience for her as an artist. This volume is the first to gather together her various approaches to photography, including portraits, collages, Polaroids and other processes. The work is a personal act of deconstruction and reappropriation.

Deana Lawson: an Aperture Monograph by Deana Lawson (By (photographer)); Zadie Smith; Arthur Jafa (Interviewer); Deana Lawson Deana Lawson is one of the most compelling photographers of her generation. Over the last ten years, she has created a visionary language to describe identities through intimate portraiture and striking accounts of ceremonies and rituals.

20 x 24: Recent Portraits by Lyle Ashton Harris Exhibition catalog from the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, Conn.)

Dawoud Bey: The Chicago Project by Dawoud Bey; Dan Collison; Elizabeth Meister; Stephanie Smith; Jacqueline Terrassa Accompanies the exhibition, "Dawoud Bey": The Chicago Project, in collaboration with Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister, "presented at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Apr.24- Jun.22, 2003. It is the project of Bey's residency program at the museum. For each of 12 teenage participants, it contains Bey's portrait, each student's self-chosen photograph and written text, as well as transcripts of their audio portraits.

Southern Roads - City Pavements by Roland L. Freeman Prepared to accompany the traveling exhibition by this noted African-American photographer, organized and circulated by the ICP; consisting of Freeman's studies of the Baltimore Arabers (street vendors), of Mississippi folk life, photos from twelve years of work including "Jazz Alley" in Chicago, and from trips through New York, Pennsylvania and the South.

Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks; Maren Stange Published on the occasion of the exhibition Bare witness: photographs by Gordon Parks, organized by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University

The Hampton Album: 44 photographs by Frances B. Johnston from an album of Hampton Institute by Frances B. Johnston Selected from an album of photographs originally made for the Paris Exposition of 1900 "as part of an exhibition demonstrating contemporary life of the American Negro." Exhibited in the Edward Steichen Photography Center, Museum of Modern Art, in January 1966.