JAMES BARNOR – EVER YOUNG
2013-07-08James Barnor’s career covers a remarkable period in history, bridging continents and photographic genres to create a transatlantic narrative marked by his passionate interest in people and cultures. Through the medium of portraiture, Barnor’s photographs represent societies in transition: Ghana moving towards its independence and London becoming a cosmopolitan, multicultural metropolis.
The exhibition showcases a range of street and studio photographs – modern and vintage – with elaborate backdrops, fashion portraits in glorious colour, as well as social documentary features, many commissioned for pioneering South African magazine Drum during the ‘swinging 60s’ in London.
In the early 1950s, Barnor’s photographic studio Ever Young in Jamestown, Accra was visited by civil servants and dignitaries, performance artists and newly-weds. During this period, Barnor captured intimate moments of luminaries and key political figures such as Ghana’s first Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah as he pushed for pan-African unity, and commonwealth boxing champion Roy Ankrah. In 1960s London, Barnor photographed Muhammad Ali training for a fight at Earl’s Court, BBC Africa Service reporter Mike Eghan posing at Piccadilly Circus and a multinational cohort of fashionable Drum cover girls.
Exhibition runs through till August 31st, 2013
Impressions Gallery
Centenary Square
Bradford
BD1 1SD
