Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, “You and I,” an exhibition of works by legendary photographer Kwame Brathwaite (1938-2023) co-curated by actor, director, and activist Jesse Williams and the artist’s son, Kwame S. Brathwaite, Director of The Kwame Brathwaite Archive.
“You and I” features works 1961-1975, including the never-before-seen “Untitled (Kwame Brathwaite Self Portrait with Argus C3)” - depicting Brathwaite with one of his favorite cameras - as well as “Untitled (Sikolo with Ruffled Dress),” an image of Sikolo Brathwaite, Kwame Brathwaite’s muse, wife and life-partner of nearly sixty years.
One of the other works in the exhibiton, “Untitled (Spirit of the Seventies)” recalls the comments of Lisa Crossman - curator and orgainzer of Brathwaite’s recent solo exhibtion at Mead Art Museum - who writes that “movement seves as an integral throughline in Kwame Brathwaite’s work - one that spans his deep engagement with social and political movements and his keen attention to the body in motion.” Other images such as “Untitled (Young Love),” depic timeless moments of joy, love, human warmth and connection.
Inspired in part by the writings of Marcus Garvey, Kwame Brathwaite, his older brother, Elombe Brath, and the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) popularized the phrase “Black is Beautiful” in the late 50’s and early 60’s. “Black Is Beautiful” is one of the most important political and cultural ideas of the twentieth century. Brathwaite and his older brother Elombe Brath (1936 - 2014) did their part to spread this idea through Brathwaite’s writings and photographs and the activities of the two organizations they helped co-found: AJASS and Grandassa Models. Kwame Brathwaite’s photographs were specifically intended to shape the course of American visual discourse. His photographs foreground how artistic and political vision can affect change in popular culture and how popular culture can affect change on culture at large.
Kwame BRATHWAITE (b. 1938 Brooklyn, NY, d. 2023, New York, NY) is the subject of the touring French exhibition, “Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful,” currently on view at Masion de la Photographie Robert Doisneau and Lavoir Numérique (Gentilly, France). Current and upcoming solo exhibitions include, “Photography and the Black Arts Movement” (Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS); “Black/Fashion: Color and Culture” (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA); “DISCO, I’m Coming Out” (Wereldmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands); “Sunday Best” (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON); and “Bold & Brilliant: The Rise of Black Magazines 1930-1970” (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX); Recent solo and group exhibitions include “Giving You the Best that I’ve Got” (Art + Practice, Los Angeles, CA); “Giants: Art From the Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA); “Camera and the City” (National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, ON); “Ideas of Africa: Portraits and Political Imagination (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY); “Kwame Brathwaite” (GwinZegal Art Center, Guingamp, France); “Kwame Brathwaite : Revolutionary Movements” (Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA); “Photography and the Black Arts Movement” (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA); “Relooking: Beauty Through a Contemporary Lens” (Centre for Fine Arts | Bozar, Brussels); “Black Photojournalism” (Amon Carter Museum of American Art; “Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture” (Art Galleries at CalState-Northridge, Northridge, CA); “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” (High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA); “Drawing Differences” (Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA); “Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica” (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL); “When Langston Hughes Came to Town” (Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV); “Black Photojournalism” (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA); and “Photography and the Black Arts Movement” (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; travels J. Paul Getty Museum). Kwame Brathwaite’s work was recently featured in the solo exhibition, “Kwame Brathwaite: Things Well Worth Waiting For” (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; traveled ArtCenter College of Art and Design, Pasadena, CA). A major touring exhibition on Brathwaite’s work, “Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful” premiered at the Skirball Cultural Center (Los Angeles, CA); and traveled to the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA); Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, SC); Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI); (Reynolda House, Winston- Salem, NC); New-York Historical Society (New York, NY); and Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (Birmingham, AL) A monograph of the same title, produced by the Aperture Foundation, was released May 2019 with essays by Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University and Tanisha C. Ford, Associate Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware. Brathwaite’s work is featured in the touring exhibition, “Black American Portraits,” which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles, CA); and travels to Spelman College Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA); and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis, TN). Brathwaite’s work recently appeared in “This Tender, Fragile Thing” at Jack Shainman Gallery (Kinderhook, NY); Brathwaite’s work is in the permanent collections of Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX); Detroit Institute of the Arts (Detroit, MI); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); Block Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL); Northwestern University (Chicago, IL); Pérez Art Museum Miami (Miami, FL); Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando, FL); Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, SC); National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC); National Museum of African-American History and Culture (Washington, DC); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA); Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI); Reynolda House (Winston-Salem, NC); New Orleans Museum of Art (New Orleans, LA); The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY); Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY); Museum of the City of New York (New York, NY); The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, NY); Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA); Mead Art Museum (Amherst, MA); Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, NH) and Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah, United Arab Emirates). Corporate collections include JPMorgan Chase Art Collection (New York, NY) and Sidley Austin LLP (New York, NY). Brathwaite’s work has recently appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, New York Post, New York Magazine. Kwame Brathwaite was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1938. He passed away in New York, New York in 2023.
“Kwame Brathwaite,” co-curated by Jesse Williams and Kwame S. Brathwaite, runs October 1 - October 31, 2026.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065.
