Raphael Albert
MISS BLACK AND BEAUTIFUL

8 JULY - 24 SEPT 2016
LONDON: AUTOGRAPH

FREE ENTRY

Curated by Renée Mussai

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Autograph

Rivington Place

London

RE2A 3BA


past exhibition

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About the exhibition

The first major solo exhibition of photographs by the late Raphael Albert – cultural promoter, entrepreneur and photographer.

For more than three decades from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, Albert organised and documented numerous black beauty pageants and other cultural events in London, while building up a portfolio of photographs of aspiring models.

His long and successful career as a promoter and chronicler of pageants included the establishment of Miss Black and Beautiful, Miss West Indies in Great Britain, and Miss Grenada.


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These competitions celebrated the global ‘Black is Beautiful’ aesthetic of the 1970s in a local west London context: paired with the obligatory bathing costumes and high heels, Albert’s contestants often sported large Afro hairstyles, inventing and reinventing themselves on stage while articulating a particular and multifaceted black femininity as part of a widely contested and ambiguous cultural performance.

Not only did the pageants offer the opportunity to create a distinct space for Afro-Caribbean self-fashioning - a wager against invisibility in response to contemporaneous mainstream fashion and life-style platforms where black women were largely absent or at best marginal - they also represented a site to challenge conventional notions of beauty implicated in the social, cultural, and political contexts of the time. Albert’s photographs serve as testament to this profound moment of self-articulation and collective celebration in London’s pan Afro-Caribbean communities.

‘This historical archive offers a unique and fascinating collection of rarely seen photographs that document the ambivalent cultural performance of gendered and raced identities at a particular historical conjuncture. Imbued with an exquisite, revolutionary sensuality and a certain joie de vivre, Raphael Albert’s photographs embody an aura of hedonistic confidence in a new generation of black women coming of age in Britain during the 1970s, fuelled by complex cultural politics of identity, difference and desire.’ - Renée Mussai

After Raphael Albert’s death in 2009, Autograph began working with his daughters Victoria Albert and Susan Ibuanokpe to preserve and promote the late photographer’s extensive collection of uncatalogued negatives and prints. A dedicated portfolio of photographs is now represented as part of Autograph's Archive & Research Centre at Rivington Place.

The exhibition features over sixty modern and vintage prints, as well as archival ephemera.

IN THE PRESS

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Elle.com
London Evening Standard

About the artist

Raphael Albert (1935-2009) was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada. After moving to London in 1953, he studied photography at Ealing Technical College whilst working part-time at Lyons cake factory. Albert soon became a freelance photographer working for black British newspapers such as West Indian World – for whom one of his first assignments was documenting Miss Jamaica – as well as The Gleaner, Caribbean Times and New World.

In 1970 he established the popular Miss Black and Beautifulcontest, followed by Miss West Indies in Great Britain, Miss Teenager of the West Indies in Great Britain and Miss Grenada. In addition to his production company Albert Promotions, he also founded his own magazine Charisma in 1984, and the associated Albert’s Girl Academy of Modelling.  Albert remained committed to documenting the West Indian communities in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham throughout his life, taking home-studio portrait photographs for local families, and avidly documenting weddings, christenings, and other social events.

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In 2007 Albert co-organised a Black History Month display of his and other photographers’ work entitled Miss West Indies in Great Britain: Celebrating 30 Years of Beauty Pageants (1963-1993) at the Hammersmith and Fulham Information Centre.

His work is now represented in the national collections of the V&A and TATE Britain.

WATCH

London Live at Miss Black and Beautiful

FIND OUT MORE

These 1970s Pageants Celebrated Black Women's Beauty

Article in the New York Times

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EXHIBITION SUPPORTED BY

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England


Images: 1) Raphael Albert, Miss Black & Beautiful Sybil McLean with fellow contestants, Hammersmith Palais, London, 1972. From the portfolio 'Black Beauty Pageants'. Courtesy of © Raphael Albert/Autograph. 2) Raphael Albert, (unidentified) Miss West Indies in Great Britain, Hammersmith, London, late 1970s/80s. From the portfolio 'Black Beauty Pageants'. Courtesy of © Raphael Albert/Autograph. 3,5) Miss Black and Beautiful gallery installation at Autograph, London. Photograph: Zoe Maxwell. 4) Raphael Albert, Holly posing at Blythe Road, Hammersmith, London, early 1970s. From the portfolio 'Black Beauty Pageants'. Courtesy of © Raphael Albert/Autograph ABP.

Page images: 1) Raphael Albert, Miss Black & Beautiful Sybil McLean with fellow contestants, Hammersmith Palais, London, 1972. From the portfolio 'Black Beauty Pageants'. Courtesy of © Raphael Albert/Autograph. 2) Raphael Albert, (unidentified) Miss West Indies in Great Britain, Hammersmith, London, late 1970s/80s. From the portfolio 'Black Beauty Pageants'. Courtesy of © Raphael Albert/Autograph.