McNeill, and others portrayed neighborhoods that have been central to African-American visual culture. in the Thirties and Forties” (1996), which charted how Gordon Parks, Robert H. When the Smithsonian hired Willis in 1992 to energize the exhibitions program at its Center for African-American History and Culture (the predecessor to the National Museum of African American History and Culture), she made a point to preserve local voices and center the black family in notable exhibitions such as “Imagining Families: Images and Voices” (1994), which focused on 15 photographers’ pictures of family life during the 19th and 20th centuries, and “Visual Journal: Harlem and D.C. This archival excavation was followed in 1989 by Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest, an exhibition and catalogue for the Williams College Museum of Art.
Her first book, Black Photographers 1840 to 1940: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography, published in 1985, unearthed a century of overlooked artists and their pictures that decisively recast the black image.
A job as the first head of photographs at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, starting in 1980, made her realize the dearth of scholarship on African-American photography, pushing her to organize exhibitions, transform archives, and write books that decisively shaped the field and inspired generations of artists and thinkers.
Willis’s influential career began to take shape when she left her native Philadelphia for New York City to study photography at Pratt. She understood the power of photography to provide connectivity, access, and inspiration well in advance of social media’s dawn, and she has been at the forefront of scholarship on African-American art, sharing her inquisitive vision and deep knowledge with students and artists in noteworthy exhibitions, books, and conferences. Willis has been ahead of her time for a very long time. That was written back in 2009, long before many American curators and historians had begun to think about these issues. Deborah Willis Wins $200,000 Crystal Bridges Prize, Ken Griffin Moves His Art Treasures, and More: Morning Links for December 16, 2022
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