Chester Higgins Jr. (born November 1946) is an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

,Chester Higgins Jr biography
BrotherMen, PBS. who was a staff photographer with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' for more than four decades, and whose work has notably featured the life and culture of people of African descent. His photographs have over the years appeared in magazines including '' Look'', ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'', ''Time'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'', ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

'', ''

Ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus '' Diospyros'', which also includes the persimmon tree. A few ''Diospyros'' species, such as macassar and mun ebony, are dense enough to sink in water. Ebony is fin ...

'', ''

Essence Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...

'' and ''

Black Enterprise ''Black Enterprise'' (stylized in all caps) is an American multimedia company. A Black-owned business since the 1970s, its flagship product ''Black Enterprise'' magazine has covered African American businesses with a readership of 3.7 mil ...

'', and Higgins has also published several collections of his photography, among them ''Black Woman'' (1970), ''Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa'' (1994), ''Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging'' (2000), and ''Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey'' (2004).

Life and work

Higgins was born in

Fairhope, Alabama Fairhope is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, located on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The population was 22,477 at the 2020 census. Fairhope is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area, which in ...

, and grew up in New Brockton, Alabama.Biography
at Chester Higgins Jr website. He attended

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU; formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute) is a Private university, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was f ...

(now

Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU; formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute) is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was founded as a normal school for teachers on July 4, 1881, by the ...

), where he was mentored by the school's official photographer, P. H. Polk, and graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in business management. Higgins worked as a photographer for ''

'' from 1975 and has exhibited in museums throughout the world. Historian

Lonnie Bunch Lonnie Griffith Bunch III (born November 18, 1952) is an American educator and historian. Bunch is the fourteenth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the first African American and first historian to serve as head of the Smithsonian. He has ...

has said of Higgins: "He elevated photography from documentary to fine art." Work by Higgins is included in the permanent collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

and has been included in numerous book collections and appeared in publications such as ''

'', ''

'', '' Look'', ''

'' and ''

''. Higgins has traveled to the African continent some 50 times since first going to

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

in 1971, and according to Lonnie Bunch: "He's capturing an Africa that has a spirit of hope, of possibility that in some ways he believes will shape the African-American experience as well." An article about Higgins in the ''

New York Amsterdam News The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...

'' observed: "In a world filled with negative visual depictions of people of color, what comes across in his decades of visual art is the love he has for Black people, a love he wishes they had for themselves as well." A 2023 interview for ''Zeke'' magazine, Daniela Cohen quoted him as saying: "Essentially, validation is what I've always done with my camera. I started out with a love for my immediate family. But it's been consistently a love for people who look like me and who experience the same experience." In ''Sacred Nile'', Higgins narrates the story of the African beginnings of spirituality, antecedents of the Biblical world along the

River Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...

from the 6,000-foot-high mountains of Kush (modern-day

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

) through Nubia (

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

) down to the ancient land of Kemet (

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

). Higgins is represented by

Bruce Silverstein Gallery Bruce Silverstein Gallery is an art gallery in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 2001 by Bruce Silverstein, the gallery represents contemporary and historically significant artists, emphasizing the exploration of both ...

in New York City. In 2022, Higgins was inducted into the

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography. History In 1977, the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California, as ...

Selected exhibitions

* 2021: ''The Indelible Spirit'', Bruce Silverstein Gallery (May 6–June 26, 2021) * 2022: ''Chester Higgins: Signature of the Spirit'', Shippensburg University (January 26–February 23, 2022)

Published books

* With Machobane, Burns
''Student Unrest at Tuskegee Institute: A Chronology''
Behavioral Science Research Institute, Tuskegee University, Alabama, 1968. An academic community in conflict and its resolution. * With McDougall, Harold
''Black Woman''
New York: McCalls Publishing, 1970. A portrait of the universality of women and the uniqueness of being black during the 1960s. * With Coombs, Orde
''Drums of Life''
New York: Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1974. A portrait of the universality of men and the uniqueness of being black in the 1970s. * With Coombs, Orde
''Some Time Ago''
New York: Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1980. A historical portrait of blacks in the United States between 1850 and 1950.
''Feeling The Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa''
New York: Bantam Books, 1994. A portrait of the African Diaspora. * With Betsy Kissam
''Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging''
Boston: Bulfinch Press, November 2000. * With Betsy Kissam
''Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey''
New York: Doubleday, October 2004. * With Fisher, Marjorie M; Peter Lacovara;

Salima Ikram Salima Ikram (; born 17 May 1965) is a Pakistani professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, a participant in many Egyptian archaeological projects, the author of several books on Egyptian archaeology, a contributor to various m ...

; Sue H. D'Auria
''Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile''
American University Press Cairo, October 2012. * With Betsy Kissam, ''Sacred Nile'', March Forth, 2021, .

References

External links

*
"Chester Higgins 'Show Me Your Soul' by Robert Glasper"
YouTube video. * Jordan Coley
"Chester Higgins’s Life in Pictures"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', August 27, 2021. {{DEFAULTSORT:Higgins, Chester 1946 births 20th-century African-American artists 20th-century American photographers 21st-century African-American people 21st-century American photographers African-American photographers American portrait photographers Photographers from Alabama The New York Times people Living people