The Black Photographers Annual is now freely available online!
Forgive me for shouting, but this is a point I wish that I'd emphasized a bit more in my review of A Commitment to the Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I, which is now on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Forty-five years after the first volume of the annual appeared, copies are hard to find. Volumes 2, 3, and 4 are particularly rare. As part of the exhibition, the VMFA has digitized the annuals, and they're now freely available to everyone with an internet connection and a computer or iPad. You can find them, here. This is a very big deal for anyone who cares about photography and American cultural history -- and for anyone who teaches the subjects.
Cover: Black Photographers Annual, Volume 1, 1973.
As I said in in the review over on Hyperallergic, each of the annuals "presented the work of nearly 50 distinguished African-American photographers, past and present. It was a revolutionary act. The worlds of art and photojournalism had largely ignored black photographers.... The first volume of the Black Photographers Annual [BPA] and the three that followed over the next seven years showcased the work of scores of contemporary black photographers and brought the history of their predecessors to the fore."
The BPA was firmly embedded in the black arts movement if the '60s and '70s and reflected the black nationalism of the era. This makes it perfect for use in teaching. Historians are used to incorporating literature and music into their courses, knowing that the past can't be fully understood without engaging its culture. Photography should also be part of the mix.
Photos: K.A. Morais, left, Louis Draper, right (Fannie Lou Hamer).
The online versions of the BPA will also be vital to the teaching of the history of photography. It's a sad and well known fact that standard histories of photography slight the work of African Americans (as well as women and all people of color). This means that histories -- and theories -- of photography fail to grapple with what Leigh Raiford calls photography’s “critical black consciousness.” To quote myself, "For a century and a half, African-American photographers had been creating a counternarrative of style and purpose that challenged conventional ideas about what photographs could look like and what work they could do in the world." It's long past time for history and theory of photography to catch up.
Photos: Morris Rogers.
The BPA editors chose two photographs by Morris Rogers to open the first volume, setting the tone for the annuals as a whole. In a wide variety of different ways, the photographers in the BPA challenged the fear, contempt, and condescension -- the racism -- that had long characterized most depictions of black people in American visual culture.
Photos: Moneta Sleet, Jr., left (Billie Holiday), Chuck Stewart, right (John Coltrane).
But the BPA was about much more than the politics of racial representation. Or, to put it another way, it wasn't only about contributing to the African American freedom struggle. Beauty, creativity, and innovation were also on the agenda.
Photos: James Van Der Zee.
Contemporary artists, such as Pulitzer Prize winner Moneta Sleet, Jr., and Chuck Stewart (both in the third image), made up most of the contributors. But the BPA also marked an early moment in the recovery of the history of African American photography. Hence, the inclusion of portfolios by artists like James Van Der Zee (above).
Photos: Roy DeCarava.
Roy DeCarava's work was the subject of many books and solo exhibitions and is in the permanent collections of museums around the world.
Forward to Volume 1 by Toni Morrison.
Just about everyone in the overlapping black artistic, intellectual, and activist communities understood the importance of the BPA. Toni Morrison and James Baldwin contributed essays. Angela Davis owned a copy.
The VMFA's digitization of the annuals is superbly executed. The photos look almost exactly like they do in the physical volumes. Images and texts can be enlarged for easy viewing and reading. They look great on a computer screen (the larger, the better) and on an iPad. (Forget about looking at them on your phone.)
Oh, and by the way, the exhibition itself is well worth a trip to Richmond.
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I actually remember when this came out- photographers of all colors were surprised(!) both by the quality of the reproductions, and the photography itself. It was like... how did they manage that!?!?
Posted by: Stan B. | 24 August 2017 at 02:34 PM