Kwame Brathwaite | “The Things They Cherished: The Very Personal Collections That Seven Artists Left Behind”

Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose ardent shots propelled civil rights conversations and helped birth the “Black is beautiful” movement of the 1960s, took his cues from music — channeling the intuitive precision of jazz riffs into his emotive portraits. As a bebop-loving teenager, Brathwaite organized political music shows in Harlem; by 21, he was photographing Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis in concert, and he would go on to shoot the Jackson 5 in Ghana, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder at intimate birthday parties and a who’s who of Black icons, including seminal shots of Whitney Houston, Sly Stone and Nina Simone. The 700-odd vinyl records collected in his Harlem living room, a number of which feature album covers shot by Brathwaite himself, are a testament to how ardently the photographer, who taught himself to play the tenor saxophone, drew inspiration and a sense of belonging from the sound of song. “He would wake me up every morning to Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up,’” says his son, Kwame S. Brathwaite. “For him, in African diaspora culture, music is a really important piece of how we record what’s happening and how we talk about the things that are happening in the world — but also important as a way to celebrate.”

December 22, 2023