American photographer, 1935-2002
Raised in segregated Richmond, Virginia, Louis Draper (1935–2002) moved to New York City to study photography in 1957. He supported himself through commercial photography, film production, and teaching so he could produce his personal work. Shooting mostly in Harlem and around New York, Draper created reflective and penetrating portraits, compelling street photography, and, later in life, abstractions. Although Draper rarely commented on individual photographs, he wrote and spoke about the impact he felt he could make through photography. The profession caused him to “realize that what I felt had worth; that I could make strong statements about the world in visual terms and that often these images did in fact move people emotionally. I had power . . . [that] was given to me for the purpose of sharing.” Seeking an ongoing forum for dialogue with other photographers, in 1963 Draper co-founded Kamoinge, an important collective of African American photographers that continues to this day in Harlem. Among the group’s concerns was to try to define a black aesthetic in photography. Draper proposed in 1972 that it would require “an investigation into the nature of what it means to be black, and a translation of that into optical terms.”