Ming Smith

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Ming Smith is an American photographer. Her photography depicts African American life. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She has photographed many black cultural figures during her career, such as Alvin Ailey and Nina Simone. Smith's art has been featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Her work was included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography in 2010. A New York Times article titled A Photographer Who Made 'Ghosts' Visible described Smith's work as having a surreal effect and as being "ethereal".

Video Ming Smith

Biography

Ming was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Columbus, Ohio. Ming Smith moved to New York after graduating from Howard University. She found work modeling. While in New York she met photographer Anthony Barboza, who was an early influence.

Career

In 1973 Ming was featured in African American photographers. A New York City publication's first volume the Black Photographers Annual. Which coincided with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and early 1970s.

In 1975 Ming became a member of the Harlem-based photography collective Kamoinge. The collective was founded in 1963 by fifteen black photographers. Ming was the first female to join the group. She was first published in the Black Photographer's Annual in 1973. The first director of the Kamoinge Collective as Roy DeCarava.

In 2004 Ntozake Shange published the book The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family and life using poetry and photographs from the Kamoinge collective. Ming's work is included in this book.

2017 - Exhibition is a survey of Ming's work from 1977 to 2010. The New Yorker Magazine describes her work displayed in the exhibition as being varied in subjects and locations. Her approach to photography has been described as being as being involved with a fuzz effect, indirection, abstraction, and Expressionist over-painting.

Maps Ming Smith

Exhibitions

Ming Smith's Exhibitions & Group Exhibitions:

1972 - Kamoinge group show; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City
1972 - Kamoinge group show; Guyana, South America
1974 - Kamoinge group show; International Center of Photography, New York
1976 - Exposure: Work by Ten Photographers, Creative Artists Public Service Program, New York City
1980 - Self-Portrait - Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, traveled to the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, MA
1981 - Artists Who Do Other Art Forms, Just Above Midtown Gallery, New York City
1982 - Eric Turner Salon, New York City
1983 - Contemporary Afro-American Photography, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, OH
1984 - 14 Photographers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York
1989 - Ming Smith, Anthony Barboza, Adger W Cowans, Robert Hale and Deborah Willis, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York
1993 - Ming Smith: in a Minor Key, Crawford and Sloan Gallery, New York City
1995 - Cultural Images: Sweet Potato Pie, curated by Russell A. Murray, Art in the Atrium, Morristown, NJ
1999 - Black New York Photographers of the Twentieth Century: Selections from the Schomburg Center Collections, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York
2000 - MOMA - organized by Peter Galassi, Museum of Modem Art, New York
2000 - Watt's Tower Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
2000 - Reflections In Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, organized by the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American Identity and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; traveling exhibition
2001 - Ming's Room, Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego, CA
2001 - In the Spirit of Jazz, Tribes Gallery, New York City
2001 - Life of the City, An Exhibition in Answer to 2001, Museum of Modem Art, New York
2002 - In the Spirit of Jazz, Ming Smith: 30 Year Retrospective, Concourse Gallery, Upper Arlington, OH
2002 - Original Acts: Photographs of African-American Performers from the Paul R. Jones Collection, curated by Amalia Amaki, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
2003 - Ming's Room, curated by Deborah Willis, Rush Arts Gallery, New York
2003 - In the Spirit: Invisible Woman, African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA
2003 - Generations: An Exhibit of African American Art, curated by Russell A. Murray, Art in the Atrium, Morristown, NJ
2004 - A Century of African American Art: The Paul R Jones Collection, University Museum, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
2005 - Contemporary Afro-American Photography; Spelman College Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
2006 - Kamoinge Inc: Black Music from Bebop to Hip Hop, co-curated by Danny Simmons and Mark Blackshear, Brooklyn Academy of Music
2006 - Harlem Photographers Present Images Dating Back to the Civil Rights Movement, Columbia College,

Chicago, IL

2007 - Celebration Life: Photography as Fine Art, Pounder-Kone Art Space, Atwater Village, CA
2007 - BLACK and White on Black, Photographic Gallery, New York Contemporary Afro-American Photography, Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana
2008 - New York City: In Focus, Bellevue Hospital Center Atrium, New York 16th Annual Exhibition: Creative Destinations 2008 Exhibition of African American Art, Art in the Atrium, Morristown, NJ
2010 - Photographs: 1977-2008, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2010 - Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography, organized by Roxana Marcoci, Curator, Sarah Meister, Curator; and Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modem Art, New York
2013 - Works from the Paul R. Jones Collection, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
2014 - Photography Classics: NL=US Art, 1977-2008, Schiedamsedijk 51 | Schilderstraat 5, 3011 ER Rotterdam, NL
2014 - An Eye for Jazz: Works by Hugh Bell, Jill Freedman, Ming Smith, Ken Van Sickle, Curated by Yulia Tikhonova, Tikhonova & Winter Fine Art, New York, NY
2017 - January 13 to February 18 - Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City

The 2017 Kasher exhibition which featured 75 vintage black and white prints that represented Smith's career. The images were from Smith's early work to her streets scenes in the 1970s.