James Barnor

Cover James Barnor Stories

This month’s ASCL Library Highlight showcases a recently acquired photobook, entitled James Barnor: Stories - pictures from the archive (1947-1987) celebrating the work of Ghanaian photographer James Barnor (1929- ), whose photographs are on display in FOMU Antwerp until 10 March 2024. The exhibition includes some rare issues of DRUM magazine (West Africa Edition) from the ASCL Library collection.

James Barnor: stories: pictures from the archive (1947­–1987)
This photobook is the catalogue of an earlier exhibition held at the Tour du Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, in  2022, as part of the Rencontre d’Arles. As part of LUMA’s Living Archives Program, the images in the book were selected in collaboration with James Barnor, from his rich archive of around 30,000 negatives, prints, and other documents. It takes the reader from the beginning of Barnor’s career, in pre-independence Ghana, to his period mastering colour photography in the UK and Belgium, and back to Ghana from the 1970s onwards.

James Barnor’s photography career
James Barnor was born in Accra in 1929. After a few years of apprenticeship in the late 1940s, he started as a freelance photographer and soon founded his famous Ever Young Studio, where he focused on portrait photography. As a freelance photographer for the Ghanaian media, he documented the important era leading up to Ghana’s independence, also photographing historical figures such as independent Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah. Soon after Ghana’s independence in 1957, Barnor headed for London, where he acquired skills in colour photography. It was in this period that he also started working for DRUM magazine.

DRUM covers by James Barnor on display in FOMU Antwerp

Photographing for DRUM magazine
DRUM started in South Africa in the 1950s, giving the floor to urban black culture and becoming a platform for many black journalists, writers, and photographers. James Barnor worked as a photographer for DRUM’s London office in the late 1950s and 1960s. His cover photos for the West and East Africa editions of the magazine include iconic pictures of African female models. A number of rare issues of DRUM magazine, owned by the ASCL Library, are currently on display in FOMU Antwerp in their exhibition "James Barnor: Studio of Life". In 2016, the photographer visited the African Studies Centre Library to have a look at some of these rare issues himself.

Exhibition 'James Barnor: Studio of Life'
This exhibition in FOMU Antwerp gives an overview of Barnor’s work. It draws special attention to the period he spent in Antwerp in 1969. At the Agfacolor school, he was introduced to the Agfa-Gevaert development process. With his knowledge of colour photography, acquired in Britain and Antwerp, Barnor returned to Ghana in the 1970s as an Agfa-Gevaert representative, and opened the first commercial colour-processing laboratory in the country. A small selection of the artist's work and a video registration of an interview, are also currently on display in the exhibition "In Brilliant Light" at Wereldmuseum Leiden.

International recognition
In his later work, Barnor gave expression to his passion for the music industry, photographing artists and album covers. It was only after finishing his rich career and moving back to the UK that Barnor became internationally renowned, when he was over 70 years old. The exhibition in Antwerp follows a long series of solo exhibitions. Recently, Barnor founded the charitable James Barnor Foundation. He also launched the James Barnor Prize, aiming to promote young African photographers from the continent.

Watch and read an interview with James Barnor (aged 94!) for the current FOMU exhibition.

Germa Seuren

Links

*The ASCL Library has also recently gained access to Black South African Magazines (Africa Commons), which includes more than 300 issues of DRUM Magazine (South Africa Edition) from 1964 to 1973. The database is available through campus/ UCLN access.

Posted on 29 January 2024, last modified on 4 March 2024