Coreen Simpson: A Monograph

The second title in Aperture's Vision & Justice Series, Coreen Simpson's first major publication is a long-overdue celebration and introduction to a singular, creative force who interweaves photography, design, and explorations of identity.

Coreen Simpson has done it all, from photography, to writing, to jewelry design. Before turning to photography, she pursued a career as a freelance writer, working for magazines such as Essence and Unique New York, from the early 1980s onward. Dissatisfied with the work of the photographers assigned to illustrate her stories, she decided to learn how to make her own, taking lessons in darkroom processing at the Studio Museum in Harlem and studying with jazz photographer Frank Stewart. Similarly, as a jewelry designer, when Simpson discovered that she couldn't find a cameo of a woman of color, she designed her signature Black Cameo, which has since been worn by everyone from Rosa Parks to Iman.

For more than five decades, Simpson's wide-ranging photographic work has covered fashion, local political figures, and the New York art world, including Just Above Midtown gallery, an essential space for Black artists. Among the work featured in Coreen Simpson: Monograph is the artist's celebrated B-Boys series, begun in the 1980s. These portraits of young people at the Roxy club coming of age within the early years of hip-hop characteristically explore the subjects' poise and self-possession and how they expressed themselves through dress. As Deborah Willis writes, "all of Simpson's portraits stress pride and dignity." This book, the artist's first major publication, offers a long-overdue celebration and introduction to Simpson's story as singular, creative force who interweaves photography, design, and explorations of identity.