Smith, Beuford
1936-2025 · Contribution: 1963-2020s
Photographer
Joined the Kamoinge Workshop as an early member in 1965 and later served as its president, co-founded the Black Photographers Annual in 1972, and spent six decades documenting Black community life, jazz musicians, and street scenes in New York City
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1936, Cincinnati, Ohio
- Active since
- 1963
- Category
- Press & Photography
- Best known for
- Kamoinge president and co-founder of the Black Photographers Annual
Impact on the world
Smith spent six decades documenting Black community life, jazz, and grief, and in co-founding the Black Photographers Annual helped create a national platform for Black photographers when institutions offered none.
An alternative history
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Sources
- Source lookupFind
Whitney Museum of American Art
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Related visionaries
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
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
Smith, Ming
1947-present
Became the first Black woman member of the Kamoinge Workshop around 1973 and, in 1979, the first African American woman photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection
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