Louis Draper
[Billy]

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Images(2)

Artist Louis DraperAmerican, 1935–2002

CultureAmerican

Titles

[Billy]

Datec. 1966

Place depictedSpanish Harlem, New York, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 9 1/8 × 13 5/8 in. (23.2 × 34.6 cm)
Sheet: 9 1/8 × 13 5/8 in. (23.2 × 34.6 cm)
Mount: 14 × 18 1/8 in. (35.6 × 46 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Jereann Chaney, Geoffrey C. Koslov, Joan Morgenstern, and Clinton T. Willour in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker on the occasion of her retirement

Object number2015.204

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Photographs by African American Artists

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionInspired by the humanist
images in Edward Steichen’s exhibition catalogue The Family of Man, which mysteriously
appeared in his college dorm room, Louis Draper headed from Virginia to New
York in 1957 to become a photographer. With teachers and mentors including
Langston Hughes, W. Eugene Smith, and Roy DeCarava, Draper discovered the rich cultural
and intellectual milieu of Harlem and the possibility that great art could grow
from everyday experience. In 1963, with other black photographers, he founded
the Kamoinge Workshop, whose members dedicated themselves to “speak of our
lives as only we can.”
ProvenanceThe artist; Anthony Barboza, Westbury, New York; purchased by MFAH, 2015.
Exhibition History"In Appreciation: Gifts in Honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 26–October 11, 2015.

"Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 27–August 30, 2020.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in pencil, mount recto, lower right: Louis Draper

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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