Dawoud Bey (b. 1953), born in New York City, began his career as a photographer in 1975 with a series of photographs titled Harlem, USA, which were later exhibited in his first solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. He has since exhibited worldwide at institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Barbican Centre in London, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. His photographs are held in numerous collections both in the United States and abroad.
The Walker Art Center organized a mid-career survey of his work, Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975–1995, which traveled throughout the United States and Europe. A major publication of the same title was released in conjunction with the exhibition. Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey was published by Aperture in 2007, and the corresponding exhibition was shown at various museums around the country through 2011. Harlem, USA was published by Yale University Press in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2012, where the series was exhibited in its entirety for the first time since its 1979 debut at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Bey’s critical writings on photography and contemporary art have also appeared in numerous publications and exhibition catalogs, further establishing his influence in the field.
His recent work includes Birmingham: Four Girls and Two Boys, a project featuring photographic pairings that reframe the tragic events surrounding the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The project presents portraits of contemporary Birmingham citizens—children the same ages as those who died, paired with adults representing the ages those children would have reached had they lived. A catalog, The Birmingham Project, was published in 2013.
Bey is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. He is currently Distinguished College Artist and Professor of Art at Columbia College Chicago, where he has taught since 1998.
Stephen Daiter Gallery represents Dawoud Bey's complete oeuvre. Other works available upon request.
