Display: 16 February 2015 – 24 May 2015. Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s is a project to increase the number of black British photographers and images of black Britain in the V&A collection. It aims to raise awareness of the contribution of black Britons to British culture and society, as well as to the art of photography.
About the Project
Staying Power is a project to increase the number of black British photographers and images of black Britain in the V&A collection.
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Al Vandenberg
Al Vandenberg studied photography in New York with Richard Avedon, Alexey Brodovitch and Bruce Davidson.
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Dennis Morris
Dennis Morris began taking photographs at the age of eight. At eleven, he had his first image published in the Daily Mirror. When he was just 14 years old, Bob Marley asked…
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Gavin Watson
As a teenager in the 1980s Gavin Watson began photographing his friends in the ‘Wycombe Skins’. The ‘Wycombe Skins’ were part of the working-class skinhead subculture broug…
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Normski
Normski was born in 1969 to African Caribbean parents and raised in North West London. At the age of eight he started taking his own photographs and by eighteen he was work…
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Yinka Shonibare
Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA) works across a range of artistic mediums including sculpture, painting, photography and film.
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Syd Shelton
Syd Shelton was born in Pontefract, South Yorkshire in 1947. He studied painting at Leeds College of Art before becoming a photographer and graphic designer.
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Raphael Albert
Raphael Albert (1935-2009) was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada. After moving to London in the 1950s, he studied photography at Ealing Technical College whilst worki…
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Pogus Caesar
Born on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, photojournalist and television producer Pogus Caesar moved to Sparkbrook, Birmingham as a child. He began his career taking photo…
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Neil Kenlock
Neil Kenlock was born in 1950 and grew up in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He lived with his grandmother until 1963 when he moved to London to join his parents who were living in …
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Maxine Walker
British Jamaican photographer Maxine Walker lives and works in Birmingham. Her photographs raise questions about the nature of identity, challenging racial stereotypes.
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Jennie Baptiste
Jennie Baptiste graduated from the London College of Communication Bachelor of Arts Photography course in 1994. Her photographs explore fashion and style as expressions of …
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James Barnor
James Barnor was born in Accra, Ghana in 1929. He began work as a photographer in Accra’s Jamestown district in 1947 where he set up the Ever Young studio.
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J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere
J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere (1930-2014) was born in the village of Ovbiomu-Emai in south-western Nigeria. By the age twenty he was one of the only photographers in his region.
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Ingrid Pollard
Ingrid Pollard was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1953 and moved to England when she was four years old. Since then she has lived in London working as a photographer.
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Colin Jones
Colin Jones was born in London in 1936 and grew up in the East End. He was a dancer with the English Royal Ballet when he began taking photographs of the company in the 196…
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Charlie Phillips
Charlie Phillips moved to Britain in 1956 to live with his parents in Notting Hill. He began to document life in the local community, taking photographs with a Kodak Browni…
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Armet Francis
While still in his teens Armet Francis worked as an assistant for a West End photographic studio. He then worked as a freelance photographer for fashion magazines and adver…
Read articleEvent - Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s
Mon 16 February 2015–Sun 24 May 2015
DISPLAY: This display showcases a variety of photographic responses to black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s. All of the photographs are from the V&A Collection and were acquired as part of the project Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s, a collaboration with Black Cultural Archives funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
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