Sensei Aishitemasu | Hidden Figures: Ming Smith #BlackHERstoryMonth 5/28 @SenseiAishitemasu | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
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Ming Smith is an American photographer, and the first Black American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City. She is known for her in-action portraits of everyday citizens and Black cultural figures.
Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from Howard University in 1973, she moved to New York City, where she found work modeling while learning photography. She married jazz saxophonist David Murray and traveled with him on the road, giving her access to jazz performers that she began to photograph in informal, behind the scenes shots. Smith lived in Greenwich Village and Harlem, traveling all over the city and oftentimes making acquaintance with other well-known artists and entertainers of the time. She became friends with photographer Lisette Model, mentor of another female photographer, Diane Arbus; Model took Smith under her wing as well, but Arbus, a white woman, became much more famous.
In 1975, Ming Smith met photographers Anthony Barboza and Lou Draper, who would also mentor her and invite her to Kamoinge, a Harlem-based group created to organize and support the creative political activity of Black photographers that also included the likes of Gordon Parks. Kamoinge encouraged the establishment of autonomous, Black-owned publications to support and create opportunities for Black artists, as well as stressing the importance of Black American photographers capturing Black subjects.
Smith dropped off her portfolio during an open call for art at the Museum of Modern Art, where the receptionist initially mistook her for a messenger. When she returned to pick it back up, she was instead taken into the curator's office to negotiate a price for her work. This made her the first Black woman photographer to be included in the collections at the MOMA in New York.
Her work is influenced by surrealism, and she often utilizes such techniques as shooting out of focus, mixing in documentary-style camera work, and painting over prints. In the early 1990s she created a series around Black American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson: retracing his steps in the Hill District of Pittsburgh where many of his plays were set, she photographed people and places that could have featured in his work, and that showcased ordinary Black life.
Despite her prolific career, Smith remained under the radar of mainstream art appreciation for decades. A retrospective brought new critical examination in 2010, followed by several well-received shows in the late '10s. Today MoMA owns seven of her works, and her pieces are in museum collections all over the world. She currently lives and creates in New York.
#HiddenFigures #MingSmith
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Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture'
Paperback: amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6
Kindle: amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6
Digital download (e-book): gumroad.com/l/IkUa
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Links:
mingsmithphoto.com
Ming Smith: artpil.com/ming-smith
'Ming Smith - 'I've always had to break boundaries:'
theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/17/ming-smith-ive-always-had-to-break-boundaries
'Ming Smith’s life in photos:'
i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/5dzd7b/ming-smith-life-in-photos
'Ming Smith: ‘Being a black woman photographer was like being nobody:’
ft.com/content/ea64791c-dac8-11e9-9c26-419d783e10e8
'Ming Smith’s Necessary Angels:'
hyperallergic.com/353691/ming-smiths-necessary-angels
'PHOTOGRAPHER MING SMITH REFLECTS ON THE MILESTONES THAT STARTED HER CAREER:'
culturedmag.com/ming-smith
'Photographer Ming Smith Shows Just How Much Black Life Matters:'
villagevoice.com/2017/02/07/photographer-ming-smith-shows-just-how-much-black-life-matters
'Vision & Justice Online - Ming Smith and the Kamoinge Workshop:'
aperture.org/editorial/vision-justice-online-kamoinge-workshop
'A Chat With Ming Smith:'
twinfactory.co.uk/a-chat-with-ming-smith-the-photographer-whose-work-is-soft-intimate-bathed-in-community-through-its-documentation-of-the-black-american-experience
Ming Smith (Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Smith
If you enjoy my work, please consider supporting! CashApp: $SerenSensei
Patreon: patreon.com/seren_sensei
Ming Smith is an American photographer, and the first Black American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City. She is known for her in-action portraits of everyday citizens and Black cultural figures.
Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from Howard University in 1973, she moved to New York City, where she found work modeling while learning photography. She married jazz saxophonist David Murray and traveled with him on the road, giving her access to jazz performers that she began to photograph in informal, behind the scenes shots. Smith lived in Greenwich Village and Harlem, traveling all over the city and oftentimes making acquaintance with other well-known artists and entertainers of the time. She became friends with photographer Lisette Model, mentor of another female photographer, Diane Arbus; Model took Smith under her wing as well, but Arbus, a white woman, became much more famous.
In 1975, Ming Smith met photographers Anthony Barboza and Lou Draper, who would also mentor her and invite her to Kamoinge, a Harlem-based group created to organize and support the creative political activity of Black photographers that also included the likes of Gordon Parks. Kamoinge encouraged the establishment of autonomous, Black-owned publications to support and create opportunities for Black artists, as well as stressing the importance of Black American photographers capturing Black subjects.
Smith dropped off her portfolio during an open call for art at the Museum of Modern Art, where the receptionist initially mistook her for a messenger. When she returned to pick it back up, she was instead taken into the curator's office to negotiate a price for her work. This made her the first Black woman photographer to be included in the collections at the MOMA in New York.
Her work is influenced by surrealism, and she often utilizes such techniques as shooting out of focus, mixing in documentary-style camera work, and painting over prints. In the early 1990s she created a series around Black American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson: retracing his steps in the Hill District of Pittsburgh where many of his plays were set, she photographed people and places that could have featured in his work, and that showcased ordinary Black life.
Despite her prolific career, Smith remained under the radar of mainstream art appreciation for decades. A retrospective brought new critical examination in 2010, followed by several well-received shows in the late '10s. Today MoMA owns seven of her works, and her pieces are in museum collections all over the world. She currently lives and creates in New York.
#HiddenFigures #MingSmith
******************
Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! teepublic.com/user/sssseren
shophouseof950.com/embroidery-tees/theblackamericans
shophouseof950.com/embroidery-tees/dacs?rq=d.a.c.s
Follow me on social media!
Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu
Personal Tumblr: sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com
Tumblr for my work: sssseren.tumblr.com
Snapchat: sssseren
GoFundMe: gofundme.com/tc5wh7q
******************
Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture'
Paperback: amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6
Kindle: amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6
Digital download (e-book): gumroad.com/l/IkUa
******************
Links:
mingsmithphoto.com
Ming Smith: artpil.com/ming-smith
'Ming Smith - 'I've always had to break boundaries:'
theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/17/ming-smith-ive-always-had-to-break-boundaries
'Ming Smith’s life in photos:'
i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/5dzd7b/ming-smith-life-in-photos
'Ming Smith: ‘Being a black woman photographer was like being nobody:’
ft.com/content/ea64791c-dac8-11e9-9c26-419d783e10e8
'Ming Smith’s Necessary Angels:'
hyperallergic.com/353691/ming-smiths-necessary-angels
'PHOTOGRAPHER MING SMITH REFLECTS ON THE MILESTONES THAT STARTED HER CAREER:'
culturedmag.com/ming-smith
'Photographer Ming Smith Shows Just How Much Black Life Matters:'
villagevoice.com/2017/02/07/photographer-ming-smith-shows-just-how-much-black-life-matters
'Vision & Justice Online - Ming Smith and the Kamoinge Workshop:'
aperture.org/editorial/vision-justice-online-kamoinge-workshop
'A Chat With Ming Smith:'
twinfactory.co.uk/a-chat-with-ming-smith-the-photographer-whose-work-is-soft-intimate-bathed-in-community-through-its-documentation-of-the-black-american-experience
Ming Smith (Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Smith
