Jamel Shabazz

Jamel Shabazz is best known for his iconic images of New York City during the 1980s and 1990s. A documentary, fashion, and street photographer, he has also authored numerous books, including the monographs Back in the Days and A Time Before Crack. His photographs have been exhibited worldwide, and his work is housed within the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City; the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; the Art Institute of Chicago; the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; and the Dean Collection, among others.

Over the years, Shabazz has taught documentary photography to young students at the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Expanding the Walls project, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Teen Curators program, and the Bronx Museum’s Teen Council. He was the 2022 awardee of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize, and the 2023 recipient of the Lucie Foundation Award for his achievement in documentary photography. His goal as an artist is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture.