Jimmy Nelson

XXII 9 // XXII China

2016

Over the course of a prolific career that has spanned more than 30 years, artist Jimmy Nelson has captured profound and enduring images of the world’s most remote tribes and indigenous peoples. His rich color photography, portraits and landscapes seek to tell the stories of many diverse cultures and explore the impact of the modern age on their traditions and life.

Nelson was born in 1967 in Sevenoaks, Kent, and spent his early childhood traveling the world with his father, a geologist. At the age of seven, Nelson was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in the North of England, where he spent the next ten years of his life.

Nelson journeyed to Tibet in his late teens — he had lost all of his hair owing to an autoimmune disorder and thought that the Tibetan monks might be more accepting of his appearance than his affluent British classmates were. The year-long trip afforded him the opportunity to photograph the East Asian region, which had only recently opened its borders to foreigners. In 1988, Nelson’s images were published in several worldwide publications, garnering international acclaim. He secured assignments to cover a range of world events as a photojournalist — among them, Russia’s involvement with Afghanistan and the war in former Yugoslavia.

In 1994, Nelson and his wife, Ashkaine, embarked on an ambitious project titled “Literary Portraits of China,” which captured images of what were then the country’s lesser seen corners. It took 40 months to complete, and his photos were later exhibited at the People’s Palace in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Later, Nelson traveled the globe to not only document indigenous cultures through his figurative photography but to discover how they were surviving in the contemporary world. This project resulted in his first book, Before They Pass Away. It was published in 2013 and an expanded edition debuted in 2020. The Jimmy Nelson Foundation was established in 2016 in order to raise awareness about the subjects of Nelson’s photography. Homage to Humanity, which features hundreds of photos of indigenous people all over the world, was published in 2018.

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