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Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
D. MICHAEL CHEERS (1953- ) Three photographs from the section titled "Survival" from "Songs of My People: African Americans, A Self-Portrait. Circa 1990-92. Silver prints, the images measuring 10¼x13¼ inches (26x33.6 cm.), and slightly smaller, the sheets slightly larger, each with Cheers' signature, numeric notations, and a citation in ink and pencil on verso.
The captions of these photographs are: "Washington, D.C., During the day, David looks for work, while his wife, Joyce, and their two-year-old grandson, Jamal, panhandle near the entrance to a subway station two blocks from the White House. A 'good day,' says Joyce, will bring in about $20" and "During the month that this story was photographed, the Knights found shelter in the basement of an apartment building, a friend's home and a van."
WITH--Eric Easter, D. Michael Cheers, and Dudley M. Brooks, editors. Introduction by Gordon Parks. Songs of My People: African Americans: A Self Portrait 4to, photo-pictorial wrappers, lightly worn. FIRST EDITION. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992.
Launched in 1990, Songs of My People was a book, exhibition, and project created and edited by Eric Easter, Dudley M. Brooks, and D. Michael Cheers. It included the work of fifty African American photographers who were commissioned beginning in 1990 to record African American life in order to create a balanced and moving selection of images of everyday life and culture. About 190,000 photographs were created. The exhibition opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and traveled in a variety of iterations from 1992-1994. The 1992 book included an introduction by Gordon Parks and essays by Sylvester Monroe, Paula Giddings, Nelson George, and Joyce Ladner. The photographs in this group were reproduced on pages 172-74.
