
Photographer and author Chester Higgins was born in Alabama in 1946, and was formally educated at Tuskegee University, graduating in 1970. Experiences with his family’s church community, as well as with college campus student protest, were formative in developing the direction Higgins’s artistic practice. Higgins’s oeuvre portrays the dignity of the African American and African diasporic communities, and this work has brought Higgins all over the world, and to Africa in particular, many times. Higgins worked as a staff photographer for The New York Times from 1975 until 2014, and is the author of several publications, including Black Woman (1970); Drums of Life (1974); Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa (1994); Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging (2000); and Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey (2004). Higgins’s work has been the subject of many international exhibitions, and is held in notable collections, such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. Higgins lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Chester Higgins
Early morning coffee, Harlem, 1974
Gelatin silver print, printed 1980
Chester Higgins
Jamaica Theater, Kingston, Jamaica, 1980
Gelatin silver print, printed 1980
Chester Higgins
Five Points, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, 1972
Gelatin silver print, printed 1972
Chester Higgins
Father prays over son on Osu Beach, Accra, Ghana, 1973
Gelatin silver print, printed 1973
Chester Higgins
Ancestral Memorial, Coney Island, 1995
Gelatin silver print, printed 1995
Chester Higgins
Omolú ritualist, Cachoeira, Brazil, 1990
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990
Chester Higgins
Quida, Manhattan, 1984
Gelatin silver print, printed 1984
Chester Higgins
Thelonious Monk, New York, 1973
Gelatin silver print, printed 1973
Chester Higgins
Ann Young in VW Bug, Manhattan, 1975
Gelatin silver print, printed 1975
Chester Higgins
Harlem Block Party, 1973
Gelatin silver print, printed 1973
Chester Higgins
Sisters, Macon County, Alabama, 1968
Gelatin silver print, printed 1973
Chester Higgins
Damani and Nataki flying airplanes, Alabama, 1981
Gelatin silver print, printed 1981
Chester Higgins
Barbershop, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1972
Gelatin silver print, printed 1972
Chester Higgins
Booksigning for Alice Walker, Brooklyn, 1991
Gelatin silver print, printed 1993
Chester Higgins
A Young Muslim Woman in Brooklyn, 1990
Platinum print
Chester Higgins
Hands of Contentment, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1973
Gelatin silver print, printed 2006
Chester Higgins
Dancers, Union Springs, Alabama, 1968
Gelatin silver print, printed 1970
Chester Higgins
Looking for Justice, Civil Rights Rally, Montgomery, Alabama, 1968
Gelatin silver print, printed 1968
Chester Higgins
Vodoum ceremony, Matanzas, Cuba, 1993
Gelatin silver print, printed 1993
Chester Higgins
Ocean Spray, Accra, Ghana, 1973
Gelatin silver print, printed 1973