The entire life’s work from Richmond born African American photographer Louis Draper was just acquired by the
The entire life’s work from Richmond born African American photographer Louis Draper was just acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Draper was one of the co-founders of Kamoinge, a collective of African American photographers who depicted through pictures what it was like to be Black in America during the 1960s and 70s.
The museum now has 35 photographs along with papers, working prints, negatives, and camera equipment from the fine arts photographer, teacher and photojournalist who died in 2002.
“The archives include almost 1,800 prints, 36,000 negatives, proof sheets and slides…all of his notebooks,” said Alex Nyerges, Director and CEO of the VMFA.
Along with the 35 photographs, prints, and negatives, the VMFA acquired 2,477 color slides, 16 transparencies and computer art, Kamoinge workshop portfolios, academic work, memorabilia, personal records and correspondence.
Nyerges said about the museum also about 1,500 prints and negatives by other photographers in the collective.
“This is a major acquisition,” he said. “We’ve become the center of Louis Draper research and archives.”
This will round out the small collection the museum already had of the late Richmond photographer. Nyerges said a few years ago the VMFA acquired 13 of his photographs.
“With his family the opportunity to be able to acquire all of his archives has been a real God send,” he said.
He credited Draper’s sister, {Nell Draper Winston}making for keeping his collection together and making sure it stayed in Virginia. The below video shows a video of her discussing his work.
Draper co-founded his collective, Kamoinge, alogn with Ray Francis, Herbert Randall and Albert Fennar in New York in 1963 to address the under-representation of black photographers in the art world. The group was founded by Louis Draper.
The collective’s body of work spans the past forty years and included numerous images of daily life in black America during the last half of the twentieth century.
“You think about the era, its the height of the Civil Rights era, its a time of great change, like so many people in every profession not just photographers, black photographers were second class citizens.”
In Janaury 2019, the VMFA will be the first major museum to organize an exhibit dedication to the late local photographer.
“We’re going to be doing a major publication and major exhibition on Louis Draper and the Kamoinge collective so that people can understand his important place in the world of photography and art and really provide the right kind of scholarly background on Draper and the Kamoinge workshop,” Nyerges said.
The VMFA acquired Draper’s work not only because he’s a Virginia artist, but to increase the amount of American art the museum has in their collection according to Nygeres.
“We have focused a good deal of our resources on two areas and one of those is African art, we have one of the great collections of African art in America,” he said. “The other is African American art and obviously Louis Draper being an African American photographer fits perfectly into that niche.”
BNyerges said the VMFA plans to showcase some of Draper’s work along the way before the full exhibition is open to the public in a few years.
