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Ted Joans

Ted Joans

“JAZZ IS MY RELIGION AND SURREALISM IS MY POINT OF...

Experimental Lines: Impressionist and Postimpressionist Drawings

Experimental Lines: Impressionist and Postimpressionist Drawings

The Impressionists, and later the Postimpressionists, were both lauded and...

Staging Art Nouveau: Women Performing at the Turn of the 19th Century

Staging Art Nouveau: Women Performing at the Turn of the 19th Century

Discover the incredible careers of female performers who became the...

Willie Anne Wright

Willie Anne Wright

Explore the life of Virginia artist Willie Anne Wright and...

Benjamin Wigfall

Benjamin Wigfall

Explore the life and work of Virginia artist and educator...

Elegance and Wonder

Elegance and Wonder

Elegance and Wonder: Masterpieces of European Art from the Jordan...

Conversations in Art

Conversations in Art

Explore connections between works of art from across time and...

Gee’s Bend Quilters

Gee’s Bend Quilters

Explore the quilts of Gee’s Bend and discover how they...

The Pattern and Decoration Movement

The Pattern and Decoration Movement

Explore the Pattern and Decoration Movement of the mid-1970s -...

Eight Views of Omi: Japanese Woodblock Prints by Ito Shinsui
近江八景の内 伊東深水 木版画

Eight Views of Omi: Japanese Woodblock Prints by Ito Shinsui
近江八景の内 伊東深水 木版画

Explore the ancient Japanese province of Omi through the woodblock...

Words Matter & Untold History

Words Matter & Untold History

Words Matter underscores the diversity of contemporary Native experience, highlighting...

The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse

The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse

“The South got something to say.” André 3000 Explore the...

The Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection

The Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection

Expressionism is our understanding; it’s central concept is not a...

Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop

Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop

"Thus it is valid to state that the Kamoinge Workshop,...

American Land, American People

American Land, American People

Native peoples’ philosophies on land insist that land and people...

Traverses: Art from the Islamic World across Time and Place

Traverses: Art from the Islamic World across Time and Place

Cutting across continents, cultures, and a millennium, this Installation Story...

The Black Photographers Annual

Current Story

The Black Photographers Annual

From 1973 to 1980, a group of African American artists...
Current Story

Lillian Thomas Pratt

Lillian Thomas Pratt

Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s extensive Russian decorative arts collection...

Alphonse Mucha: Paris 1900

Alphonse Mucha: Paris 1900

Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was a featured artist at...

The Black Photographers Annual

From 1973 to 1980, a group of African American artists in New York City published The Black Photographers Annual. The idea emerged from the collective of African American photographers known as the Kamoinge Workshop (Kamoinge, from the Kikuyu language of Kenya, means “to work together”). The forty-nine artists featured in the book, however, far exceeded the boundaries of the collective.

Related Stories & Collections

The Black Photographers Annual:

Volume 1, 1973

In her preface for the Annual novelist Toni Morrison wrote, “It was conceived as a commitment to the community of Black artists…,” while writer and activist Clayton Riley described the Annual as a defining moment in black culture.

See the Full Volume

The Black Photographers Annual:

Volume 2, 1974

In the second volume, the Black Photographers Annual, editor and publisher Joe Crawford included an interview with P. H. Polk (1898–1984), the official photographer at Tuskegee University for nearly 50 years. “A number of students at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama told The Black Photographers Annual that looking at the works of P. H. Polk was like a study in Black history.” – Chester Higgins.

See the Full Volume

The Black Photographers Annual:

Volume 3, 1976

Volume 3 features a Foreword by Gordon Parks, Introduction by James Baldwin, and interviews with 1975 Pulitzer Prize winning photographers Ovie Carter and Matthew Lewis. Not to mention, “… more than 90 photographs by 40 Black photographers across the U.S.”

See the Full Volume

The Black Photographers Annual:

Volume 4, 1980

The final of the annuals to be published in the series, volume four carries the tradition of presenting the work and experience of black photographers. Copies of the final volume are incredibly scarce due in part to a fire that destroyed many of the copies.

See the Full Volume

Related Videos

Photographer Louis Draper
4:44

Chiefly known as as a New York photographer, Louis Draper was first a Richmonder. His sister, Nell Draper Winston, talks about her brother’s ability to capture the character of everyday people.

Artist Talk | LeRoy Henderson
1:04:08

LeRoy Henderson discusses his life and work documenting American protest culture with Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, on Thursday, February 16, 2017 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Celebration of Photography with Beuford Smith and Shawn Walker
1:30:17

Watch Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, VMFA’s Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, in conversation with photographers Beuford Smith and Shawn Walker, whose works are featured in the current exhibition, A Commitment to the Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I. Smith, the founder and chief photography editor of The Black Photographers Annual, worked closely with Walker who served as a picture editor for this key publication that ran from 1973 through 1980. Together they discuss the Annual, their participation in the New York photography collective, The Kamoinge Workshop, and the role of jazz as a metaphor and subject in photography.