Cowans, Adger W.
1936-present · Contribution: 1958-present
Photographer; Hollywood still photographer
Became a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963 after working alongside Gordon Parks at Life magazine, and went on to become the first African American still photographer in Hollywood, working on more than 30 feature films
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1936, Columbus, Ohio
- Active since
- 1958
- Category
- Press & Photography
- Best known for
- Kamoinge founder and Hollywood's first Black still photographer
Impact on the world
Cowans opened Hollywood's camera department to Black photographers while helping found the collective that would redefine Black fine-art photography.
An alternative history
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Sources
- Source lookupFind
International Photography Hall of Fame
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Related visionaries
Draper, Louis Hansel
1935-2002
Helped found the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963 and served as the guiding force behind its founding vision and 50-year history, photographing Harlem street life and civil rights-era figures including Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and John Coltrane
Barboza, Anthony
1944-present
Built a five-decade commercial and fine-art photography career after joining the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963 as its youngest member, later serving as the collective’s president from 2005 to 2016 and co-editing its landmark 2015 history, Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge
DeCarava, Roy Rudolph
1919-2009
Became, in 1952, the first African American photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, using it to produce The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955) with Langston Hughes and establishing Black-and-white fine-art photography of everyday Black life as a serious artistic practice distinct from social documentary
Randall, Herbert Eugene Jr.
1936-present
Co-founded the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963, then spent the summer of 1964 as the primary photographer embedded with Mississippi Freedom Summer’s Hattiesburg project, producing 1,759 negatives that stand as one of the most complete visual records of a single Civil Rights-era community