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Decolonize Black History Month

Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe

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Day 27: Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe Photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe was born on July 9, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois. Moutoussamy-Ashe began her art practice at a young age, taking classes offered to children at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her parents, an interior designer and an architect, were both creatives who instilled an appreciation for the arts in the young Moutoussamy-Ashe. She grew up surrounded by the works of Gordon Parks and Picasso. Moutoussamy-Ashe graduated from The Cooper Union School of Art in 1975 with a BFA in photography. While in school she traveled to West Africa for independent study of African art techniques. After graduating she found work as a graphic designer and did photojournalism for NBC. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, Leica Gallery, and the Excelsior in Florence. Besides NBC, media outlets such as Life Magazine, People, and The New York Times have also featured her photographs.
In addition to exhibiting her work, Moutoussamy-Ashe has published several books of photography, including 3 volumes on her time in West Africa. Daufuskie Island: A Photographic Essay (1983) documented life of the Gullah inhabitants on the island in South Carolina. In the book Daddy and Me: A Photo Story of Arthur Ashe and his Daughter Camera (1993), Moutoussamy-Ashe explored her late husband’s relationship with their daughter while giving intimate insights into living with AIDS. She also wrote Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers (1993) which profiled artists from camera girls in jazz clubs to photojournalists such as Vera Jackson.
Moutoussamy-Ashe has taught courses on photography and visual literacy on both the high school and college levels. She was a trustee at The Cooper Union. She helped to found the Arthur Ashe Learning Center and was the director the Arthur Ashe Endowment for the Defeat of Aids.