“We have to study the history of what we do.” With these few words, Coreen Simpson gets straight to the point. And perhaps more than ever today, since it took until 2025 for the first major English-language monograph on this prolific, multidisciplinary artist — now 83 years old — to finally appear.
The book publishing house of Aperture fills a long-standing gap for those who know her and those discovering her for the first time. “This is the first study of her use of style as a path to individual freedom and representative justice,” explain the editors Leigh Raiford, Deborah Willis, and Sarah Lewis in the introduction to Aperture’s Vision & Justice series.
The dialectic of being
Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Grace Jones, Eartha Kitt, Diana Ross, Toni Morrison, Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, David Bowie… Coreen Simpson’s archive reads like a portrait gallery of modern icons.
This first comprehensive book invites readers to rediscover her world. Over 230 pages, it brings together essays by leading voices in visual culture and an illuminating interview with Deborah Willis that highlights Simpson’s impact on contemporary art and style. At its core are her photographic series over the years — vibrant celebrations of Black American cultural identity. The images are expressive, dynamic, and unapologetically assertive.
Coreen Simpson has always claimed her desire to expose the dignity and pride of her subjects. She recalls vivid memories of her adoptive mother braiding her hair on the Brooklyn stoop as they watched neighbors parade by in extravagant, colorful outfits. “I don’t have any baby pictures of myself, or of my brother and me, because we were in an orphanage and then in foster care. I would love to see a photograph of my adoptive and biological parents — but I don’t have one. So the camera, and the value of an image, mean a lot to me. It’s a document one possesses.”
Photographer by necessity
With a career spanning more than fifty years, Coreen Simpson is best known for her portraits of everyday life and her series on B-Boys in 1980s New York, capturing the pulse of early hip-hop through streetwear, graffiti, breakdancing, and DJ culture.
Born in Manhattan to a white mother and a Black father — and later separated from both to grow up in foster homes — Simpson forged her own path. She began her professional life as a writer before turning to photography out of frustration with the images accompanying her work. “I was freelancing, and I didn’t like the photos people sent me or took of my subjects. I thought my stories would be better if I could photograph my subjects as I saw them,” she explains in her interview with Deborah Willis.
Two mentors — photographers Walter Johnson and Frank Stewart — helped set her on that path. Johnson taught her how to use a 35mm camera in half an hour, and Stewart, known for his portraits of jazz musicians, made her realize the importance of documenting Black life during his darkroom classes at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Simpson also made her mark through jewelry. Her Black Cameo line became her most iconic creation — a fusion of fashion, femininity, and politics: a cameo depicting a Black woman, not a white woman painted in black, as she insists. The piece became a symbol of pride and representation, worn by Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna, Janet Jackson, and Iman. She first sold her pieces on the streets of New York before being discovered by fashion designer Carolina Herrera. The success of this venture gave her both financial autonomy and artistic freedom.
The essence of style
Simpson’s visual influences include Richard Avedon, Gordon Parks, James Van Der Zee, Baron de Meyer, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Her collage series About Face stands apart from the rest of her work, flirting with surrealism. These experiments unfold as fragmented narratives “with the painterly verve of Weegee and Diane Arbus,” two of her acknowledged influences. In these images, the faces of her models are hidden behind braids, African masks, clock faces, eyes, hands, or mouths, creating dreamlike and layered compositions. In her Artists series, she plays with blur and superimposition.
Cowboys, drag queens, cooks, activists, restroom attendants, street preachers, believers, onlookers — all the anonymous figures who crossed her path were treated with the same grace. Simpson quickly developed her own portable studio setup, using backdrops, lights, and a tripod, as she did for her B-Boys portraits shot at the Roxy Club. She made her rounds at New York’s legendary venues — the Apollo Theater in Harlem, fashion shows, sports events, and musicals such as The Wiz.
Coreen Simpson’s work has been published in The Village Voice, Ms., The New York Times, Unique NY, Vogue, Stern, Essence, and Black Enterprise. Through this long-awaited monograph, her fifty-year career continues to resonate with generations of artists, designers, and photographers who explore Black identity and culture in all its depth and vitality.
Coreen Simpson: A Monograph is published by Aperture and available for $65.
