These striking studio portraits, curated and brought together following ten years of research championed by Autograph, constitute the most comprehensive collection of nineteenth-century photography depicting the Black subject in the Victorian era, including some of the earliest known images of Black people photographed in Britain.
The historically marginalized lives of both ordinary and prominent Black figures of African, Afro-Caribbean, South Asian, and mixed heritage are seen through a prism of curatorial advocacy and experimental scholarly assemblage. Black Chronicles features high-quality reproductions of plate negatives, cartes de visite, and cabinet cards, many of which were buried deep in various private and public archives including the Hulton Archive’s remarkable London Stereoscopic Company collection, unseen for decades. These photographs are linked with imperial and colonial narratives through newly commissioned essays and rare lecture transcripts, in-conversation and text interventions by Caroline Bressey, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, Neelika Jayawardane, Lola Jaye, and Rene´e Mussai, and an afterword by Mark Sealy.
Built upon groundbreaking, in-depth new research, Black Chronicles opens up photographic archives to expand and enrich photography’s complex cultural histories and subjectivities, offering an essential insight into the visual politics of race, representation, and difference in the Victorian era by addressing this crucial missing chapter.
Contributors
Renée Mussai
Edited By
Rene´e Mussai is a curator, writer, and scholar of visual culture, photography, and lens-based media with a special interest in Black feminist practices. Formerly senior curator and head of curatorial at Autograph, London, Mussai has curated and edited award-winning projects such as Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama—Hail the Dark Lioness (2019) and Lina Iris Viktor’s Some Are Born to Endless Night—Dark Matter (2020). Her latest book is the sole-authored Eyes That Commit—A Visual Gathering (2025).
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Foreword By
Paul Gilroy
Text By
Paul Gilroy is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics. He gained his PhD at Birmingham and then worked for the Greater London Council, before returning to academia with posts at the University of Essex, Goldsmiths College, and Yale. He is the author of numerous groundbreaking books including There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, Between Camps, After Empire, Black Britain, and Darker than Blue. He lives in London.
Stuart Hall
Text By
Lola Jaye
Text By
Neelika Jayawardane
Text By
Mark Sealy
Text By
Val Wilmer
Text By
