There are American fashion photographers aplenty, but few made a name for themselves in photojournalism and portraiture as well. Among their ranks: Lee Miller, Eve Arnold, and Annie Leibovitz. So, too, Gordon Parks, Roxanne Lowit, and Bruce Weber. And yet there’s one photographer who excelled in all of these genres while also documenting street style, nightlife, and the birth of hip-hop—not to mention starting her own jewelry line and creating designs worn by activist icons such as Rosa Parks, Ruby Dee, and Winnie Mandela.
That photographer is Coreen Simpson, who went from chronicling Harlem’s sidewalk pageantry and the adornment of downtown club kids to documenting the inner sanctums of musicians and supermodels. Now, at age 83, she is finally getting her due in Coreen Simpson: A Monograph, the first book devoted to her oeuvre. The volume—the second in Aperture’s heralded Vision & Justice book series, coedited by Sarah Lewis, Leigh Raiford, and Deborah Willis—showcases this long-neglected artist, who shot for publications such as Vogue and Essence, and whose work resides in MoMA’s permanent collection. As Lewis, the founder of Vision & Justice, observes in an essay for the monograph: “Over the decades, the vast extent of Simpson’s artistic output—her documentation of Black life, Black culture, and Black style, accurately shown—resulted in a critical record for the project of representational justice.”
Herewith, a Simpson sampling.
