HERB ROBINSON
Herb Robinson has been documenting the human experience as a photographer for over 55 years. Born in Jamaica, West Indies, he immigrated to New York City as a young child. His early work includes black and white street scenes, portraits and abstract works. Robinson was one of the original members of Kamoinge Workshop, the legendary Black photography collective founded in 1963 under the leadership of Roy DeCarava, who was one of his greatest influences.
Robinson’s work has been shaped by cinema, painting and jazz. The painters Peter Paul Rubens, El Greco, Chardin and Vermeer were notable influences, shaping Robinson’s sense of composition and use of light. During his formative years he was enthralled by the live jazz being played by his neighbors, many of whom were famous musicians. That jazz aesthetic and spontaneity is apparent in both his earlier street photography and his more recent photographic series of the past decade. Robinson has stated that “My instrument is the camera, it is the vessel that responds to and carries my emotions.” His humanist street photography incorporates experimental approaches in framing, use of blurring and edge tension that heighten abstract and surreal dimensions of urban life. In addition to his fine art photography, Robinson trained as a still life photographer and operated his own commercial studio in New York.
Robinson’s work was part of the major Tate Modern exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which first opened in London in 2017. Following the Tate Modern, Soul of a Nation traveled to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas; the Brooklyn Museum; the Broad Museum in Los Angeles; the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Robinson’s work was also part of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in Richmond, Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Cincinnati Art Museum and The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. His work was also part of A Picture Gallery of the Soul exhibition at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery of the University of Minnesota.
Robinson previously exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York; American Museum of Natural History in New York; Gordon Parks Gallery in New York; Kenkeleba Gallery in New York; N’Namdi Gallery in Detroit, New York and Chicago; Columbia University in New York; New York University in New York; Harvard University School of Design in Cambridge; Columbia College in Chicago; Calumet Gallery in New York; and the International Center of Photography in New York.
Along with Anthony Barboza, Robinson is the co-editor of Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge (Schiffer Publishing, 2015.) The book was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best photography books of the year. He also co-curated the related Timeless exhibition at Kenkeleba Gallery in 2016.
Herb Robinson’s METRO / New York / London/ Paris, was published in 2022 by Schiffer Publishing.
Robinson’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery, Baltimore Museum of Art and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Selected Exhibitions
J. Paul Getty Museum (2022)
Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota (2022)
Cincinnati Art Museum (2022)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. (2020)
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (2020)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tx (2020)
de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (2019-2020)
Broad Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2019)
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, N.Y. (2018-2019)
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2018)
Tate Modern, London, England (2017)
Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, N.Y. (2015-2016) (Co-curated)
Gordon Parks Gallery, Bronx, N.Y. (2012)
Calumet Gallery, New York, N.Y. (2010)
Calumet Gallery, New York, N.Y. (2009)
Columbia University, New York, N.Y. (2008)
Columbia College, Chicago, Ill. (2006)
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N.Y. (2006)
G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, New York, N.Y. (2004)
G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Ill. (2005)
New York University, New York, N.Y. (2002)
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York (2001)
UFA Gallery, New York, N.Y. (1999)
International Center of Photography, New York, N.Y. (1974)
American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y. (1974)
Harvard University School of Design, Cambridge, MA. (1973)
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y. (1972)