Louis H. Draper

Louis Hansel Draper was a New York-based American photographer known for his images of Harlem in the 1960s and was founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop. His work was featured in several volumes of the publication, The Black Photographers Annual. In addition to his images of everyday people in urban settings, Draper photographed significant artists, intellectuals, and civil rights leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, John Coltrane, Malcolm X, Miles Davis, and Langston Hughes. Draper's work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, among many other museums, public and private collections.

In 1959, Draper created one of his most famous images, Congressional Gathering, a black and white photograph that depicts hanging drapery arranged to resemble Ku Klux Klan hoods. This photograph has been interpreted as referencing the violence committed by the KKK during the civil rights movement as well as a specific reference to the Massive Resistance movement in Virginia.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024