LOUIS H. DRAPER (1935 - 2002) Untitled (Young Girl on Brownstone Steps).
Silver print, circa 1965. 235x337 mm; 9 1/4x13 1/4 inches.
In 1958, Louis H. Draper moved from his hometown, Richmond, Virginia to Harlem to study photography. He photographed the streets of New York with a compassionate and artistic eye for the social conditions of the time. He also took portraits of such notables as Langston Hughes, Hughie Lee-Smith, Miles Davis, Malcolm X and Katherine Dunham. In 1963, Draper was a founding member of the seminal black photographer's collective, Kamoinge, whose first director was Roy DeCarava. A photograph by Draper illustrated the cover of an important July, 1966 Camera magazine issue which featured images of Harlem by Kamoinge artists. His work recently was included in the traveling museum exhibition Posing Beauty, and acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Virginia State University. Biography courtesy of Nell Draper-Winston and the Louis Draper Archive.
