Timeless

Recognized by the NYT as one of the Best Photography Books, this is the first comprehensive look at the Kamoinge Workshop members and their work!

Immerse yourself in the visual stream created over the first 50 years by Kamoinge, a pioneering photographic collective founded in 1963 in New York City, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Kamoinge’s members include many of the nation’s most accomplished photographers. This is the first comprehensive book of the work of Kamoinge’s 30 members, from the founding of the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963 to 2014. After more than 5 decades of racist barriers to the recognition of Kamoinge by major museums, Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop launched in 2020 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Several Kamoinge original members were featured in the major 2017–2020 international exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, first created at the Tate Modern in London.

In this compendium, over 280 photographs are interspersed with insights and thoughts from Kamoinge’s members and other renowned authors. Taken in New York City, West Africa, Guyana, and suburban America, the photos include abstracts; daily moments of men, women and children; landscapes; and portraits of Miles Davis, Biggie Smalls, a young Ntozake Shange, and many other visionary citizens.

Editors Anthony Barboza and Herb Robinson have been active members of Kamoinge since 1963. Vincent Alabiso is president of the Visual Journalism Alliance. Quincy Troupe is an award-winning author.

Herb Robinson has been documenting the human experience as a photographer for over 50 years. Born in Jamaica, West Indies, Robinson was among the original members of Kamoinge, the legendary black photography collective founded in 1963 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Robinson’s photographs are currently part of the major Tate Modern exhibition "Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power" that originated in London. "Soul of a Nation" was recently at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, Brooklyn Museum in New York, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, and will be traveling to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, followed by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Robinson’s work has been exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Gordon Parks Gallery in New York; N’Namdi Gallery in Detroit, New York and Chicago; Harvard University School of Design in Cambridge; Columbia College in Chicago; Calumet Gallery in New York; the International Center of Photography in New York; Columbia University in New York; Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York; UFA Gallery in New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York, and New York University. The book he co-edited with Anthony Barboza, Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge (Schiffer Publishing, 2015) was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best photography books of the year. Robinson’s work can currently be seen at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond as part of the exhibit Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, which will travel to the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2020.