Description: A collection of extraordinary nineteenth-century portraits that radically shifts our understanding of the presence and identities of the Black subject in Victorian Britain.
Brief description: Renée Mussai is an independent curator, writer, and scholar of visual culture. Formerly senior curator and head of collection at Autograph, she is currently senior research associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD), University of Johannesburg, associate lecturer at University of the Arts London, and chair of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation. Her publications include Eyes That Commit: A Visual Gathering, and several award-winning artist monographs.
Review Quotes: A deeply researched volume containing the most extensive gathering of images of Black people in 19th Century England [and] a noble enterprise... Black Chronicles is not a typical photobook: it is an invitation to explore and to reengage this history. In these pages we may never know the names and the stories behind these portraits--many of which are striking--but in spending time with these images we can help retrieve the past, and perhaps remember what has shaped us.-- "Art Photo Collector" (6/1/2025 12:00:00 AM)