As a student in the 1970s, Deborah Willis found that images of black beauty did not exist in the larger culture. Determined to redress this imbalance, Willis started a lifelong quest that has become Posing Beauty. Subjects such as Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker illuminate the past; Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali take us to the civil rights era; Denzel Washington, Lil’ Kim and Michelle Obama represent the present. However, Willis does not only celebrate the famous but also recovers a world many never knew existed.
       Featuring the work of more than one hundred photographers, Posing Beauty challenges our assumptions about what it means to be "beautiful".
       

"...beautiful and thought provoking portraits."
Black and White Photography

"...this amazing collection..."
International Herald Tribune

"Full of stunning images...this is an excellent collection of reportage and street photography that traces the highs and lows of black culture in America over the past 120 years."
Amatueur Photographer

October 2009 • £35.00 • ISBN 978 0 393 06696 8 • 288pp • 229 x 305mm • 242 duotone photographs; 40 pages of five-colour photographs