‘Black is beautiful’ and the artist who inspired ‘World’s Richest Female Singer’ Rihanna

With a photo exhibition dedicated to Kwame Brathwaite in Los Angeles, a new monograph celebrating his photographs, and singer Rihanna saying he was the inspiration for her Fenty fashion collection Miss. Let’s explore the iconic photographer who pioneered the “Black is Beautiful” movement.

According to Kwame Brathwaite, people refer to him as “the image keeper”. Some people less humble than him might consider themselves custodians of culture. From the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the American photographer used his dramatic images – in one photo, his wife, Sikolo, wears a beaded headpiece designed by Carolee Prince; in another photo, she wears a floral dress with her hair styled in a big African shag – aiming to overturn mainstream beauty standards that excluded women of color, spreading the slogan “Black is beautiful” during the era. that point.

Sikolo Brathwaite, wife of photographer Kwame Brathwaite in Harlem, New York City, 1968

Brathwaite is the co-founder of African Jazz – Art Society and Studios – a collective of artists, playwrights, designers and dancers – and a passionate supporter of Grandassa Models – a group of activists Young women’s fashion founded in the 60s in New York City to express African beauty in the most natural way. The group designs, produces and models their own clothes with great success and appears in countless Brathwaite images.

Grandassa models at the Merton Simpson Art Gallery, New York City, 1967

Today, Brathwaite’s influence can be felt in music (photographs of legends such as singer Bob Marley and artist Miles David are some of the most iconic), politics (see his seminal documentary at the inauguration of the late South African President Nelson Mandela) and fashion – at the end of May, his photos were released alongside official photos of Rihanna’s first capsule fashion collection (a collection of basic, easy-to-mix and timeless items) for the Fenty line under luxury goods group LVMH.

Model Priscilla Bardonille in Harlem, New York City, 1962

In April, Black is Beautiful, a major exhibition of Brathwaite’s photography, opened at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles (on view until September 1, 2019) with its first monograph. for his work (published by the Aperture Foundation in May). “My mission is to document the creativity within the African diaspora,” Brathwaite, now 81, writes in the foreword. “Not just in black artists, musicians, athletes, dancers, models and designers, but in all of us. My job is to capture every moment of this creativity in its truest form.”

Carolee Prince wears jewelry she designed in Harlem, New York City, 1964

Rihanna in her latest collection