Bey, Dawoud

Dawoud Bey (born David Edward Smikle; November 25, 1953) is an American photographer, artist and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits, including American adolescents in relation to their community, and other often marginalized subjects. In 2017, Bey was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is regarded as one of the "most innovative and influential photographers of his generation". Bey is a professor and Distinguished Artist at Columbia College Chicago. According to The New York Times, "in the seemingly simple gesture of photographing Black subjects in everyday life, [Bey, an African American,] helped to introduce Blackness in the context of fine art long before it was trendy, or even accepted"