New York based, African American photographer Beuford Smith, becoming active in the Civil Rights era of the late 1960s and ‘70s, is best known for his socially conscious photographs of Black communities, significant events, and political and cultural leaders at work. Smith’s evocative black and white photos, often verging on abstraction, reveal his empathy for his subjects, and arouse strong emotional responses from his viewers.
Smith's photographs have been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Broad in Los Angeles, de Young Museum in San Francisco, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tate Modern in London, Addison Gallery of Art, New York University, Tate Modern, and others. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, New York Public Library, Princeton University, Haverford College, Cleveland Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and others.
Inspired by Roy DeCarava’s intimate approach to photographing the Black community in Harlem, Smith joined DeCarava as a founding member of the Harlem-based Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of mutually supportive Black photographers, which also included Anthony Barboza, Louis Draper, Ming Smith...
Category
1970s Realist Black and White Photography