Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers

Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne

Dodd, Mead, 1986

[From the library of Dr. Ralph Gomes, Howard University.] Hardcover and dust jacket. Dust jacket in protective mylar cover. Good binding and cover. Minor shelf wear. Clean, unmarked pages. 

"In 1985, Arthur Ashe's widow, the photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, published a historical survey that she called Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers. Viewfinders chronicled the work of the (largely disregarded) black female photographers that Moutoussamy-Ashe had meticulously unearthed, dating back to 1866. Now, 30 years after Moutoussamy-Ashe's book, two Brooklyn-born photographers are picking up where she left off, with Mfon: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, an anthology featuring the work of more than 100 female photographers of African descent from around the world." - En Vogue 

Dr. Gomes was a professor at Howard University for 49 years in sociology and criminology. He was also a former Olympic athlete, representing Guyana in the 1960 Rome summer Olympics. Besides his scholarly work, Gomes was active in the black liberation movement. He had an impressive and deep collection of black art, historical advertising and iconography that spoke of the passage of black people and how they sought to record their life stories. His collection spanned from slavery, to antebellum life, to Jim Crow, to the Harlem Renaissance, to sport, to the civil rights movement.

This is an oversized or heavy book, which requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US.