
A cache of work and archival materials related to American photographer Shawn Walker, a founding member of the influential Harlem-based black photography collective the Kamoinge Workshop, has been acquired by the Library of Congress. Some 100,000 photographs, negatives, and transparencies documenting life in Harlem from the early 1960s through the present is only the eighth complete archive by a single photographer to be purchased by the Library for its collections, and will be the only body of work by an African-American photographer accessible to the public (the archives of Robert H. McNeill are restricted from public display until October 2022).
The library’s acquisition, made in partnership with the Photography Collections Preservation Project, was supplemented by Walker with more than 2,000 prints, audio recordings, and memorabilia produced by early members of the Kamoinge group, including Anthony Barboza, Louis Draper, and others.
“I have tried to document the world around me, particularly the African-American community, especially in Harlem, from an honest perspective so that our history is not lost,” Walker said in a statement.