Recently published, stock arriving soon

Ming Smith, In the Presence of Spirit co-published by Dashwood Books and Speciwomen brings to light never-before-published color images from one of the most important photographers of the twentieth-century and an iconic American voice.

Ming Smith, in the Presence of Spirit is the first monograph presenting Detroit born, Harlem based artist Ming Smith’s color photographs. Only a handful of Smith’s works in color have ever been seen. Compiling the selection of 200 photographs presented here involved digitizing her color archive of thousands of color transparencies and negatives shot throughout Smith’s career in parallel to her black and white work.

It presents a broad scope of her practice; early family photographs; decades of documenting major cultural icons in jazz, dance, and theater as well as the experimental nature of her work; plays of abstraction and Smith’s painted works. Prominent themes that made Smith a pioneer of formal experimentation.

The book features contributions by Arthur Jafa, Fred Moten, an extended essay by Namwali Serpell, and several poems by Jacqueline Woodson.

Ming Smith, born in Detroit in 1947, lives and works in New York.  A foundational figure in American photography whose work surveys Black interiority, and spiritual presence. In 1972, she joined Kamoinge as its only woman member, and in 1979 became the first Black woman photographer whose work was acquired by MoMA. Smith’s work has been presented internationally including at the MoMA, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the 36th Bienal de São Paulo and at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Her work is held in prominent public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm among others.

A major retrospective of her work, Wandering Light, is currently on view through October 4th as part of Les Rencontres de la Photographie in  Arles, France.

192 pages, 24.5 x 30 cm, hardcover
Published by Dashwood Books
ISBN: 9798234033833