African American Portraits: Photographs from the 1940s and 1950s

This exhibition presents more than one hundred and fifty studio portraits of African Americans from the mid-twentieth century, part of an important recent acquisition by The Met. Produced by mostly unidentified makers, the photographs are a poignant, collective self portrait of the African American experience during the 1940s and 1950s—a time of war, middle-class growth, and seismic cultural change.

#AfricanAmericanPortraits

" . . . a rarely seen view of life at a time of change" —Guardian

" . . . it becomes evermore important to see not just oneself, but one's community represented at major museums such as the Met . . . " —Artsy

" . . . demonstrate[s] how African-Americans made use of the popular yet intimate art form to depict themselves free from caricature or bias." —Wall Street Journal

" . . . photography as record-keeping at its finest." —Musée

The exhibition is made possible by the Alfred Stieglitz Society.