Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This event occurred on May 21, 2026.
Photography has long played a significant role in movements for global Black liberation. With offices based worldwide, the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) helped shape Black visual culture in ways that directly contributed to movements for civil rights and Black pride. JPC photographers such as Moneta Sleet, Jr., G. Marshall Wilson, Valerie Goodloe, and several others were leaders from behind the camera lens, capturing era-defining images portraying the emotion and depth of Black life. The pictures that JPC photographers and their peers created made lasting impacts on Black culture, politics, and society.
This panel features Chicago-based visual artist and photographer Kenn Cook Jr., Mazie Harris, associate curator at the Getty Museum, and Keith Rice, historian and archivist at California State University, Northridge. They explore how JPC photographers and their peers influenced Black visual culture and the larger field of photography in the 20th century and beyond.
The Johnson Publishing Company Archive is owned by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and J. Paul Getty Trust. In 2019, a consortium made up of the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution acquired the JPC archive. In 2022, ownership was transferred to NMAAHC and the J. Paul Getty Trust, with a commitment to make the archive available to the public by 2029.
https://www.getty.edu/projects/johnson-publishing-company-archive/
Backstage: An Unfurling of the Johnson Publishing Company, is an event series that explores the people behind the JPC through conversations and show-and-tells of their archives held at other repositories and special collections.
https://www.getty.edu/whats-on/backstage-an-unfurling-of-the-jpc/
Learn more about this event:
https://www.getty.edu/calendar/backstage-black-photography/
Speakers
Kenn Cook Jr. (b. 1988) is a Chicago-based photographer and culture keeper whose work centers on storytelling, memory, and the preservation of Black cultural life. Rooted in his upbringing on the Westside of Chicago, his practice moves between documentation and intimacy, using photography to reflect on community, place, and belonging. His work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has also worked with the Magnum Foundation. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography. He is a 2024 LensCulture Emerging Talent Award winner, was named the 2025 Artist-in-Residence at the Legler Regional Library, and is currently an Artist-in-Residence in the Nichols Tower program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Mazie Harris is associate curator at the Getty Museum. She joined the Department of Photographs in 2014. She specializes in American photography past and present. She holds a PhD in the history of photography and American art from Brown University, as well as an MA in modern art from Boston University. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, American Antiquarian Society, National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Terra Foundation for American Art.
Sherwin “Keith” Rice is the historian and archivist for the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge. The Bradley Center houses photographic and oral history materials that document the attested historically underrepresented communities of Los Angeles. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Cal State Northridge and a Ph.D in history from Claremont Graduate University.
Jehoiada Zechariah Calvin is a memory worker, writer, and zine-maker from Chicago. Before joining the JPC Archive project, he created legacy management resources as the Community Engagement Archivist for the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He is also a co-organizer with Beet Street Zine, an art-based and community-led publication for and by Queer and Trans Black people and people of color to create a more equitable food system.
______________________________________________________________________
The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts and their various histories through its expertise, active collecting program, public programs, institutional collaborations, exhibitions, publications, digital services, and residential scholars programs. Its library and special collections of rare materials and digital resources serve an international community of scholars and the interested public. The Research Institute's activities and scholarly resources guide and sustain each other and together provide a unique environment for research, critical inquiry, and scholarly exchange.
Getty Research Institute: https://www.getty.edu/research/
This event occurred on May 21, 2026.
Photography has long played a significant role in movements for global Black liberation. With offices based worldwide, the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) helped shape Black visual culture in ways that directly contributed to movements for civil rights and Black pride. JPC photographers such as Moneta Sleet, Jr., G. Marshall Wilson, Valerie Goodloe, and several others were leaders from behind the camera lens, capturing era-defining images portraying the emotion and depth of Black life. The pictures that JPC photographers and their peers created made lasting impacts on Black culture, politics, and society.
This panel features Chicago-based visual artist and photographer Kenn Cook Jr., Mazie Harris, associate curator at the Getty Museum, and Keith Rice, historian and archivist at California State University, Northridge. They explore how JPC photographers and their peers influenced Black visual culture and the larger field of photography in the 20th century and beyond.
The Johnson Publishing Company Archive is owned by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and J. Paul Getty Trust. In 2019, a consortium made up of the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution acquired the JPC archive. In 2022, ownership was transferred to NMAAHC and the J. Paul Getty Trust, with a commitment to make the archive available to the public by 2029.
https://www.getty.edu/projects/johnson-publishing-company-archive/
Backstage: An Unfurling of the Johnson Publishing Company, is an event series that explores the people behind the JPC through conversations and show-and-tells of their archives held at other repositories and special collections.
https://www.getty.edu/whats-on/backstage-an-unfurling-of-the-jpc/
Learn more about this event:
https://www.getty.edu/calendar/backstage-black-photography/
Speakers
Kenn Cook Jr. (b. 1988) is a Chicago-based photographer and culture keeper whose work centers on storytelling, memory, and the preservation of Black cultural life. Rooted in his upbringing on the Westside of Chicago, his practice moves between documentation and intimacy, using photography to reflect on community, place, and belonging. His work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has also worked with the Magnum Foundation. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography. He is a 2024 LensCulture Emerging Talent Award winner, was named the 2025 Artist-in-Residence at the Legler Regional Library, and is currently an Artist-in-Residence in the Nichols Tower program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Mazie Harris is associate curator at the Getty Museum. She joined the Department of Photographs in 2014. She specializes in American photography past and present. She holds a PhD in the history of photography and American art from Brown University, as well as an MA in modern art from Boston University. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, American Antiquarian Society, National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Terra Foundation for American Art.
Sherwin “Keith” Rice is the historian and archivist for the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge. The Bradley Center houses photographic and oral history materials that document the attested historically underrepresented communities of Los Angeles. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Cal State Northridge and a Ph.D in history from Claremont Graduate University.
Jehoiada Zechariah Calvin is a memory worker, writer, and zine-maker from Chicago. Before joining the JPC Archive project, he created legacy management resources as the Community Engagement Archivist for the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He is also a co-organizer with Beet Street Zine, an art-based and community-led publication for and by Queer and Trans Black people and people of color to create a more equitable food system.
______________________________________________________________________
The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts and their various histories through its expertise, active collecting program, public programs, institutional collaborations, exhibitions, publications, digital services, and residential scholars programs. Its library and special collections of rare materials and digital resources serve an international community of scholars and the interested public. The Research Institute's activities and scholarly resources guide and sustain each other and together provide a unique environment for research, critical inquiry, and scholarly exchange.
Getty Research Institute: https://www.getty.edu/research/
