Chester Higgins Jr. | |
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![]() Higgins in 1994 | |
Born | 1946 (age 77–78) Fairhope, Alabama, United States |
Alma mater | Tuskegee Institute |
Known for | Photography |
Awards | International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum |
Website | www |
Chester Higgins Jr. (born November 1946) is an American photographer, [1] [2] [3] [4] who was a staff photographer with The New York Times for more than four decades, and whose work has notably featured the life and culture of people of African descent. [5] [6] His photographs have over the years appeared in magazines including Look , Life , Time, Newsweek , Fortune , Ebony , Essence and Black Enterprise , and Higgins has also published several collections of his photography, among them Black Woman (1970), Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa (1994), Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging (2000), and Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey (2004). [7]
Higgins was born in Fairhope, Alabama, and grew up in New Brockton, Alabama. [8] He attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), where he was mentored by the school's official photographer, P. H. Polk, and graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in business management. [8] Higgins worked as a photographer for The New York Times from 1975 and exhibited in museums throughout the world. [2]
Historian Lonnie Bunch has said of Higgins: "He elevated photography from documentary to fine art." [9] Work by Higgins is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and has been included in numerous book collections and appeared in publications such as Newsweek , Fortune , Look , Essence and Life .
Higgins has traveled to the African continent some 50 times since first going to Senegal in 1971, and according to Lonnie Bunch: "He's capturing an Africa that has a spirit of hope, of possibility that in some ways he believes will shape the African-American experience as well." [9]
In Sacred Nile, Higgins narrates the story of the African beginnings of spirituality, antecedents of the Biblical world along the River Nile from the 6,000-foot-high mountains of Kush (modern-day Ethiopia) through Nubia (Sudan) down to the ancient land of Kemet (Egypt).
Higgins is represented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City. [10]
In 2022, Higgins was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. [11] [12]
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