Two Bass Hit, Lower East Side (Primary Title)
Beuford Smith, American, born 1941 (Artist)
Another early member of the Kamoinge Workshop, Smith recalls that as a young man growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, Roy DeCarava’s book The Sweet Flypaper of Life changed the way he thought about photography. After he moved to New York in the early 1960s, Smith sought out DeCarava, who encouraged Smith to join the Kamoinge Workshop. As many members recall, they always played music at their meetings, and jazz maintained a central role in the group’s dialogue. Musical terms, such as improvisation and timing, applied equally well to the skills used in street photography. Here Smith frames the silhouetted bass players against a backlit tent, and the dark lines of the tent’s seams appear to establish a visual rhythm.
Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, VMFA, February 1 - June 14, 2020; Whitney Museum of American Art, November 20, 2020 - March 28, 2021; Cincinnati Art Museum, February - May, 2022; J. Paul Getty Museum, July-October, 2022
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