The Croydon Photography Forum guest speaker in February is the veteran and pioneer photographer, James Barnor.
Despite being a photographer for more than six decades, Barnor’s work is only now truly beginning to receive the recognition that it deserves. His work has been exhibited recently at Harvard, the National Gallery in Cape Town, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
His archive of street and studio portraiture covers a remarkable period in history, bridging continents and photographic genres, marked by his passionate interest in people and cultures.
His work documents societies in transition: Ghana moving towards its independence, and London becoming a multicultural metropolis during the “Swinging Sixties”. His extensive portfolio of street and studio portraiture include many commissioned by Drum magazine, Africa’s first Black politics and lifestyle publication.
Photographer James Barnor: coming to Croydon soon
In the early 1950s, Barnor’s photographic studio Ever Young was visited by civil servants and dignitaries, performance artists and newly weds. During this period, he captured intimate moments of luminaries such as Kwame Nkrumah as he pushed for Pan-African unity and Commonwealth boxing champion Roy Ankrah. In 1960s London, he photographed Mohammad Ali preparing for a fight at London’s Earl’s Court and BBC Africa Service reporter Mike Eghan at Piccadilly Circus.
