Roots to Reckoning
1 October 2005
Powerful and intimate, reflections of the forces that have shaped the lives of London’s black communities since the war are portrayed in the photographic exhibition at Museum of London.
Over 100 images in Roots to Reckoning showcase the lives and times of three pioneering Jamaican-born British photographers, Neil Kenlock (b. 1950), Armet Francis (b. 1945) and Charlie Phillips (b. 1944).
With subjects ranging from iconic figures like Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali, Black Panther marches, street protests, and the early Carnival to beauty, fashion, and portraits taken in Africa and Jamaica, the photographs capture the events and attitudes of the times and trace the journey of the three photographers as search for their own identities as black and African Londoners rather than the children of West Indian immigrants.
The exhibition is based around the dramatic and sometimes unusual life stories of the three photographers, coming to London as lone children, rejoining parents who they scarcely knew. All three were living in London by the 60s, and witnessed over four decades of tremendous change.
These are photographs taken by insiders who were active in their communities and part of all that was going on. Though their styles are very different, the work of all three gives the viewer a sense of being there, watching events unfold.
Official photographer to the British Black Panther movement, Neil Kenlock’s work documents the rallies, racism and upheaval during the 1970s and early 1980s in London.
Alongside the big picture of marches, protests and portraits of prominent campaigners there are images focusing on telling detail – a 1972 front door daubed with the slogan ‘KEEP BRITAIN WHITE’, or his 1970 close-up of four schoolgirls carrying shoulder bags embroidered with Black Panther badges.
These subjects contrast with his portrait and glamour studio photography which appeared in the British black press of the 1970s and 1980s – Westindian World, Root magazine: Neil was co-founder and picture editor of Root Britain’s first glossy black lifestyle magazine which loosely modelled itself on the American magazine Ebony.
Armet Francis is the official photographer for the Africa 05 programme of events. Since the 1970s he has used his photographs to pursue his personal exploration of the experiences and identities of African people around the globe, whether in Jamaica, America, Africa or Britain.
His forceful and dignified studies of black people in differing circumstances ‘create a poetic commentary on the way humanity can survive displacement and hardship’.
Armet began his career in the fashion and advertising industries of 1960s London, and the exhibition includes striking studio portraits on a ‘black-is-beautiful’ theme, part of the positive assertion of black identity during that period.
Charlie Phillips, having been given his first camera in 1959, began documenting the life around him in Notting Hill in the 60s: regulars chat at the bar of the ‘Piss House pub’ on Portobello Road; Pedro and his ‘posse’ pose outside Count Suckle’s Cue Club in Praed Street; the American radical Stokely Carmichael visits The Cue Club; the Carnival moves out of local halls and takes to the streets in 1968; an anti-apartheid demonstrator holds up a placard in front of South Africa House.
Phillips’ more recent photographs taken at black funerals in London are a poignant reminder that London’s Caribbean community is the capital’s oldest post-war migrant community as well as one of the largest. Many of the eager young migrants who came to London in the 1940s and 1950s to help the city’s recovery after the Second World War are now in their seventies.
Mike Seaborne, curator of photographs at the Museum of London says, “Roots to Reckoning helps us to better understand the story of London’s black communities and to appreciate the huge artistic and cultural impact they have had on all our lives. Neil Kenlock, Armet Francis and Charlie Phillips, are significant photographers whose work documents a key chapter in London’s post-war life.”
Museum of London
London Wall
London EC2Y 5HN
Open Monday to Saturday 10am-5.50pm, Sunday 12pm-5.50pm
Admission free
Recorded information: 0870 444 3851
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Download the Roots to Reckoning press pack (PDF 3mb)
Further press information and photographs from:
Marian Williams
tel: 020 7814 5502
email: mwilliams@museumoflondon.org.uk
Fay Ross-Magenty
tel: 020 7814 5511
email: fross-magenty@museumoflondon.org.uk
Editor’s notes
- Museum of London intends to create a permanent Black Independent Photographers Archive (BIPA) for its collection, based on the work of Armet Francis, Neil Kenlock and Charlie Phillips. The free exhibition Roots to Reckoning showcases the work of these pioneering photographers, who all came to London in the 1950s/60s, and serves to promote the archive to both the public and to potential sponsors of the project.
- A selection of some of the photographs already held in the Museum of London’s collection can be viewed online at www.museumoflondon.org.uk or via the picture library from the home page, and at www.photolondon.org.uk.
- Museum of London Group consists of the Museum of London, London Wall, the Museum in Docklands, West India Quay and Mortimer Wheeler House, Eagle Wharf Road, home to the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC), Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) and the Museum of London Specialist Services (MoLSS) funded by grants from DCMS and the Corporation of London.