| Description |
Autograph ABP and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute jointly present the first exhibition in the US of James Barnor's work.
A seminal collection that features a range of archival photographs, including street and studio portraits with elaborate backdrops, fashion shoots in glorious colour, and social documentary images from the late 1940s to the 1970s depicting a burgeoning modernity as the Gold Coast becomes Ghana.
Barnor's archive was produced during a career spanning more than sixty years. It does not cover a remarkable period in history but also bridges continents and photographic genres, creating a transatlantic narrative marked by his passionate interest in people and cultures. Through the medium of portraiture, Barnor's photographs represent societies in transition: Ghana moving towards its independence and London becoming a cosmopolitan and a multicultural metropolis.
In the early 1950s, Barnor's photographic studio Ever Young was visited by civil servants and dignitaries, performance artists and newly-weds. While taking assignments for African Drum magazine, Barnor documented the glamorous fashion style of 1960s swinging London and captured intimate moments of luminaries such as Kwame Nkrumah; boxing champion Roy Ankrah, dubbed the Black Flash; Mike Egan, broadcaster for the BBC Africa Service; and Mohammed Ali preparing to fight Brian London in the early 1966. |