Printed magazines may not hold a place of prominence in today’s online world, but these periodicals were the lifeblood for news for more than a century. Life, Look and Colliers were household names that featured the work of Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, and Ray Bradbury (among others).
In the Black community, Ebony, Essence, and Jet, employed writers such as Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. And one of their defining features was photography.
Now, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is celebrating the photojournalism and artistry of the Black photographers who traveled the world to capture images for these publications – and many others. Bold and Brilliant: The Rise of Black American Magazines, 1930 - 1970 is the first dedicated to the photographers who worked for the more than 300 general-interest magazines that were published across the country for the Black community, spanning the eras of the Great Migration, Civil Rights activism, and the Black Is Beautiful movement.
On view from February 28 to May 31, 2027, Bold and Brilliant will present more than 100 images by 50 photographers, shown alongside the vintage spreads in which they originally appeared. Because nearly all of these images were produced for publication in magazines — the primary way readers of this era encountered photography — most of these photographs are being displayed for the first time in the exhibition.
It will be organized by editorial section, with themes such as fashion and beauty, food and home, entertaining, sports, music, nightclubs, professions, education, and activities, mirroring how viewers and readers would’ve encountered them on the printed page. The result is an exhibit that explores the broad and dynamic Black cultural life in the mid-century.
“This groundbreaking exhibition builds on archival recovery efforts to locate the work of hundreds of photographers, most of them overlooked until now,” said Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “The scholarship behind Bold and Brilliant demonstrates how visual culture reflects but also influences identity, self-representation and community allegiances — something that is at the heart of magazines and museums alike.”
Among those included in the exhibit are Nat Brown, a largely self-taught photographer who shot for Ebony, Hue, and Jet, ; Stephen Deutsch, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States who took photos for Duke, Ebony, and Tan Confessions; and Gordon Parks, a photographer for Circuit’s Smart Woman, Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Newspic who said he “chose my camera as a weapon against all the things I dislike about America — poverty, racism, discrimination,” and who was also a prominent writer and director.
Accompanying the exhibit is a fully illustrated catalogue that includes biographies of the featured photographers and essays by the exhibit’s co-curators, Lisa Volpe, curator of photography at the MFAH; Anjuli Lebowitz, the Judy Glickman Lauder Curator of Photography at the Portland Museum of Art; and Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Exhibitgoers and readers will also find essays on jazz by Jason Moran, writings about beauty by Tina Beyoncé Knowles, Doug Glanville’s observations on sports, and more.
The museum has partnered with the University of Houston to produce and host an archival database of the newly rediscovered publications. When complete, it’s anticipated to include more than 2,500 entries.
More information, including tickets, is available on the MFAH website.
image courtesy Govinda Gallery. © LaMonte McLemore Archive
LaMonte McLemore's Fashion Model inkjet print is included in the MFAH's Bold and Brilliant: The Rise of Black American Magazines, 1930 - 1970 exhibit.
