Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985
National Gallery of Art, Washington, September 21, 2025–January 4, 2026
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, February 24–May 24, 2026
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, July 25–November 1, 2026

Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 investigates the role of African American photographers and artists working with photographs in developing and fostering a distinctly Black perspective on art and culture. The Black Arts Movement was a uniquely American creative initiative, closely linked to the civil rights movement and comparable to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s in its impact. Through new institutions and publications, Black writers, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists explored ways their art could further the American civil rights movement and communicate messages of Black history and identity. Photography and the Black Arts Movement reveals how studio and street photographers, photojournalists, painters, conceptual artists, graphic designers, and community activists used photography to cut across traditional racial boundaries, express messages of empowerment, and advance social justice.

Bringing together some 150 works by more than 100 artists, Photography and the Black Arts Movement also includes objects from Africa, the Caribbean region, and Great Britain, representing artistic dialogues created through travel, migrations, and international engagement with the social, political, and cultural ideas that propelled the movement. Among the artists included are Billy Abernathy, Anthony Barboza, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Frank Bowling, Kwame Brathwaite, Ernest Cole, Adger Cowans, Roy DeCarava, Emory Douglas, Louis Draper, David C. Driskell, Samuel Fosso, Charles Gaines, Barkley Hendricks, Danny Lyon, Barbara McCullough, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Gordon Parks, Adrian Piper, Juan Sánchez, Coreen Simpson, Betye Saar, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, Frank Stewart, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Major support is provided by the Trellis Charitable Fund.

The exhibition is curated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, and Deborah Willis, university professor and chair of the department of photography and imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts and director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University.

Exhibition Press Release: Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985

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Laurie Tylec
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