(1929 - )
James Barnor was born in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where he first established a studio in 1949. From 1959-70 he built a successful career in England before returning to Accra, where he was the first photographer to introduce new colour processing to Ghana. On return to London in the 1980s, Barnor’s work became less well-known until 2009,when the UK curator René Mussai of Autograph, London, discovered his work at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. She curated his exhibition Ever Young, which was presented in 2010 at Autograph, before touring internationally. Since then, Barnor’s work has gained international prominence: in 2011, at the age of 82, he had his first major retrospective, held at the National Gallery of South Africa. In 2020, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society; and in 2021, enjoyed a critically acclaimed exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.
