Chester Higgins Jr. (born November 1946) is an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

,Chester Higgins Jr biography
BrotherMen, PBS. who was a staff photographer with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' for more than four decades, and whose work has notably featured the life and culture of people of African descent. His photographs have over the years appeared in magazines including ''

Look To look is to use sight to perceive an object. Look or The Look may refer to: Businesses and products * Look (modeling agency), an Israeli modeling agency * ''Look'' (American magazine), a defunct general-interest magazine * ''Look'' (UK m ...

'', ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'', ''Time'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', '' Fortune'', ''

Ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus '' Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when ...

'', ''

Essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

'' and ''

Black Enterprise ''Black Enterprise'' is a black-owned multimedia company. Since the 1970s, its flagship product ''Black Enterprise'' magazine has covered African-American businesses with a readership of 3.7 million. The company was founded in 1970 by Earl ...

'', and Higgins has also published several collections of his photography, among them ''Black Woman'' (1970), ''Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa'' (1994), ''Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging'' (2000), and ''Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey'' (2004).

Life and work

Higgins was born in

Fairhope, Alabama Fairhope is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, located on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The 2020 Census lists the population of the city as 22,477. Fairhope is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolita ...

, and grew up in

New Brockton, Alabama New Brockton is a town in Coffee County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 1,428. The community was named for Huey E. Brock, a settler who came to the region in 1871. New Brockton is part of the Enterprise Micropoli ...

.Biography
at Chester Higgins Jr website. He attended

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was d ...

(now

Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was ...

), where he was mentored by the school's official photographer, P. H. Polk, and graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in business management. Higgins worked as a photographer for ''

'' from 1975 and exhibited in museums throughout the world. His work is included in the permanent collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

and has been included in numerous book collections and appeared in publications such as ''

'', '' Fortune'', ''

'', ''

'' and ''

''. In ''Sacred Nile'', Higgins narrates the story of the African beginnings of spirituality, antecedents of the Biblical world along the

River Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

from the 6,000-foot high mountains of Kush (modern-day

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

) through Nubia ( Sudan) down to the ancient land of Kemet (

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

). Higgins is represented by

Bruce Silverstein Gallery Bruce Silverstein Gallery is a photographic art gallery in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, New York City. It was started in 2001 by Bruce Silverstein. Archived February 6, 2008. The gallery is a member of the Association of International Pho ...

in New York City. In 2022 Higgins was inducted into the

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography. History In 1977 the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California and a ...

Published books

* with Fisher, Marjorie M; Peter Lacovara; Salima Ikram; Ssue H. D'Auria.
Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile
'. American University Press Cairo, October 2012. * with Betsy Kissam.
Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey
', New York: Doubleday, October 2004. . * with Betsy Kissam.
Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging
', Boston: Bulfinch Press, November 2000. *
Feeling The Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa
', New York: Bantam Books, 1994. A portrait of the African Diaspora. * with Coombs, Orde,
Some Time Ago
', New York: Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1980. A historical portrait of blacks in the United States between 1850 and 1950. * with Coombs, Orde,
Drums of Life
', New York: Doubleday/Anchor Press. A portrait of the universality of men and the uniqueness of being black in the 1970s. * with McDougall, Harold,
Black Woman
', New York: McCalls Publishing, 1970. A portrait of the universality of women and the uniqueness of being black during the 1960s. * with Machobane, Burns,
Student Unrest at Tuskegee Institute: A Chronology
', Behavioral Science Research Institute, Tuskegee University, Alabama, 1968. An academic community in conflict and its resolution.

References

External links

*
"Chester Higgins 'Show Me Your Soul' by Robert Glasper"
YouTube video. * Jordan Coley
"Chester Higgins’s Life in Pictures"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'', August 27, 2021. {{DEFAULTSORT:Higgins, Chester 20th-century American photographers American portrait photographers African-American photographers 1946 births Living people 20th-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American people