James Augustus Van Der Zee was an American photographer best known for his portraits of black New Yorkers. He was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Aside from the artistic merits of his work, Van Der Zee produced the most comprehensive documentation of the period. Among his most famous subjects during this time were Marcus Garvey, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Countee Cullen.
Roy Rudolph DeCarava was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communities where he lived and worked. Over a career that spanned nearly six decades, DeCarava came to be known as a founder in the field of black and white fine art photography, advocating for an approach to the medium based on the core value of an individual, subjective creative sensibility, which was separate and distinct from the "social documentary" style of many predecessors.
Coreen Simpson is a noted African-American photographer and jewelry designer, whose work has an African-American theme.
Consuelo Delesseps Kanaga was an American photographer and writer who became well known for her photographs of African-Americans.
Marvin E. Newman is an American artist and photographer.
Deborah Willis is a contemporary African-American artist, photographer, curator of photography, photographic historian, author, and educator. Among her awards and honors, she is a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University.
Jules Allen is a photographer and a tenured professor in the Art & Photography Department of Queensboro Community College, City University of New York, where he has taught for two decades. He was born in San Francisco, California.
Benedict Joseph Fernandez III was an American educator and journalistic and documentary street photographer. He is noted for photographing the protest movements of the 1960s, particularly those of the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Dindga McCannon, born July 31, 1947, is an African-American artist, fiber artist, muralist, teacher author and illustrator.
Martin Edward Elkort was an American photographer, illustrator and writer known primarily for his street photography. Prints of his work are held and displayed by several prominent art museums in the United States. His photographs have regularly appeared in galleries and major publications. Early black and white photographs by Elkort feature the fabled Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City, showing its ethnic diversity, myriad streets and cluttered alleys. The Coney Island amusement park in Brooklyn was another favorite site during that period. His later work depicts street scenes from downtown Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico. Throughout Martin Elkort's long career as a photographer, he always showed the positive, joyful side of life in his candid images.
John P. Jacob is an American curator. He grew up in Italy and Venezuela, graduated from the Collegiate School (1975) in New York City, and studied at the University of Chicago before earning a BA in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic (1981) and an MA in art history from Indiana University (1994).
Nona Faustine is an American photographer and visual artist who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Janet Henry is a visual artist based in New York City.
Ming Smith is an American photographer. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Ka-Man Tse is a Hong Kong-born photographer, video artist, and educator based in New York. Influenced by her Asian-American and queer identity, Tse primarily uses portraiture to tell stories about the people, identity, visibility, and place in and around the queer community.
Linda Day Clark is a photographer, professor, and curator noted for capturing everyday life in African American rural and urban environments, particularly in Gee's Bend. Her work has been shown in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Lehman College, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum.
The Kamoinge Workshop is a photography collective that was founded in 1963. In 2013, the group stood as “the longest continuously running non-profit group in the history of photography.” The collective was born when two groups of African-American photographers came together in collaboration. The first group was Group 35, which consisted of photographers James Ray Francis, Earl James, Louis Draper, Herman Howard, Calvin Wilson, and Calvin Mercer. Louis Draper was especially crucial to its founding. The other group did not yet have a name, but included African-American photographers Albert Fennar, James Mannas, Herbert Randall, and Shawn Walker. The first director of the group was Roy DeCarava, who led the collective from 1963 to 1965.
James M. Mannas Jr. is an American photographer, film director, cinematographer and writer. He is recognized as one of the founding fifteen members of the Kamoinge Workshop (1963), which evolved from the union of two separate groups of African American photographers who were based in New York City. His work depicts African American New York City street life, avant-garde jazz musicians; dancers; portraits; landscapes; and post-colonial Guyana.
Salimah Ali is an American contemporary photographer working in portraiture, documentary photography, and photo journalism.
Frank Stewart is an African-American photographer based in New York. He is best known for photographing prominent Jazz musicians.
