Dawoud Bey

Artist presentation

Dawoud Bey, born in 1953 in New York City, began his career as a photographer in 1975 with the series Harlem, USA, which was first exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. Since then, his work has been shown at institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Barbican Centre in London, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His photographs are part of numerous collections in the United States and abroad.

The Walker Art Center organized a mid-career retrospective of his work, Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975–1995, which traveled throughout the United States and Europe. Among his recent works is Birmingham: Four Girls and Two Boys, a project that revisits the tragic 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Bey received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and holds a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University. He has been teaching art at Columbia College Chicago since 1998.

Dawoud Bey, Untitled (Crooked Trees), 2022 – Courtesy of the artist & Stephen Daiter Gallery

Dawoud Bey, A Man Wearing an Adami Baseball Cap, Brooklyn, NY, 1988 – Courtesy of the artist & Stephen Daiter Gallery

 Lucas Zenk – Director of Stephen Daiter Gallery 

“The opportunity to work with Dawoud happened very organically.  About 16 years ago he was looking for a gallery to show his early black and white photography.  He was friendly with Steve over the years and approached us knowing the gallery’s love of vintage photography. And as a fan of Dawoud’s photography, it was a natural fit. Dawoud’s photography is so genuine and earnest in approach, allowing his subjects to reveal themselves while connecting to him in profound and meaningful ways. Through his photographs he is able to purvey a deep sense of reverence for the history of a person, place, or community — celebrating the past and the present all at once.“

Website: Stephen Daiter Gallery

Stephen Daiter Gallery

230 W. Superior St.
Fourth Floor
Chicago, IL 60654

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