Ming Smith's soulful photos of Sun Ra, James Baldwin and skies over Harlem

In one photograph, James Baldwin’s face is repeated in the clouds above Harlem, and in another it’s James Baldwin, James Van Der Zee and Eubie Blake. She titled one of her series ‘Invisible Man’, borrowing the name of the Ralph Ellison novel. Sun Ra, Nina Simone and Grace Jones were all her subjects at one time. Her photographs, though, aren’t contained to America. As well as the New York neighbourhoods of Harlem and Coney Island, and Pittsburgh, her work takes in Senegal, Egypt, Germany and Ethiopia; her marriage to the jazz musician David Murray meant that she travelled widely.

Atmospheric, ambivalent, and with a finely attuned sense of mood, her photographs are spontaneous and immediate; they feel of their moment. Her profiles subtly unbalance the idea of subjectivity. It’s rare that she captures subjects head on, instead she creates dynamic portraits. The New York Times called her, “a photographer who made ghosts visible.”

It feels like Smith’s work has been the focus of renewed attention in recent years; she was included in Soul of A Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, the Tate exhibition currently at the Brooklyn Museum, and she received her first major retrospective at Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, last year. But Smith has long been a quiet pioneer. She was the first female member of Kamoinge, the influential Harlem-based collective of African American photographers. She was also the first black woman to have work included in MOMA's permanent collection, which she achieved, in 1978, by responding to an open call for portfolios.

Curated by Jenn Nkiru for our on-going AFROFREQUENCY season, this online exhibition spans her early work, from the beginning of the ‘70s, until the early '90s.

Ming Smith
Gambella, Ethiopia, ca. 1975
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Black Jewels of the U.S.A. II, Harlem, NY, ca. 1991
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Street Market, Cairo, Egypt, ca. 1973
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Cicatrice Cosmetique, Gambela, Ethiopia, ca. 1975
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Birds Beyond Trafalgar, London, UK, ca. 1980
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Dakar Roadside with Figures, Dakar, Senegal, 1972
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, NY, ca. 1981
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
James Baldwin, James Van Der Zee and Eubie Blake in Skies of Harlem, Harlem, NY, 1979
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, NY, July 4, 1981
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Neighborhood (from the August Wilson series), Pittsburgh, PA, ca. 1993
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Senior Citizens Lunch (from the August Wilson Series), Pittsburgh, PA, ca. 1993
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Goghing with Darkness and Light, Singen, Germany, 1989
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Sun Ra space II, New York, NY, 1978
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Hart-Leroy Bibbs Circular Breathing, 1980
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Trio in Gambela, Gambela, Ethiopia, 1973
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Pharaoh at the Bottom Line, New York, NY, 1977
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
WSQ in full swing, Portland, OR, 1980
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
James Baldwin in Setting Sun over Harlem, Harlem, NY, 1979
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, ca. 1981
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York