When photographer Fern Logan was an art student in the 1970s, African-American artists were represented in academia even less well than today. To rectify this blanket omission, Logan embarked in the mid-'80s on The Artist Portrait Series: Images of Contemporary African American Artists. In her introduction, Deborah Willis, curator at the Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution, writes, "Logan's portraits `unfix' the `shadows' of photographic construction to reveal... the self-construction of the sitter." Logan's 61 subjects include Alvin Ailey, Maya Angelou and Romare Bearden as well as important, lesser-known artists like sculptor Selma Burke (commissioned to make a plaque with FDR's likeness, which was then used on the dime without her permission or any recompense), sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett and painter Ed Clark.
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Review
“This book is long overdue. When Fern Logan introduced me to her work in the early 1980s, I was awestruck with her clarity of vision and her awareness of the importance of this project. Her photographs not only document African American artists but also provide the viewer with a visual record of the character, personality, and grace her subjects presented to the camera.”—Deborah Willis, Center for African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution
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