THE PAGES OF BLACK HISTORY CONTINUE…

THE PAGES OF BLACK HISTORY CONTINUE…

THE PAGES OF BLACK HISTORY CONTINUE…

REMEMBERING MORGAN SMITH (February 16, 1910 – February 17, 1993) REMEMBERING MARVIN SMITH (February 16, 1910 – 2003)

Morgan and Marvin Smith identical African-American twin brothers were photographers and artists known for documenting the life of Harlem in the 1930s to 1950s. The twins were born to sharecroppers Charles and Allena Smith. The family moved to Lexington when Morgan and Marvin were 12 years old. While in high school Morgan and Marvin Smith developed their artistic skills using oil paints and soaps to create sculptures. Their passion moved them to Harlem, New York, in 1933, and opened up M. Smith Studios soon thereafter in 1937. The studio was located on 125th Street, next to the Apollo Theater, and became a meeting place for performers, artists, and fashion models, many of whom they had met at the Apollo’s official photographers. The Smith Brothers using New Media-technological advances and artistic talent did video, sculpting, painting, and at an extremely high level when resources were difficult to acquire for African Americans. Additionally, their mission was to shine their lens on all shades of Blackness during a time when dark skin was considered by some as a handicap in the entertainment industry. Together they created incisive, poignant, simply beautiful images defining Harlem from the 1930s to the 1950s. ”Harlem spread itself before the cameras of Morgan and Marvin Smith like a great tablecloth, and eagerly they went about devouring what it had to offer,” Gordon Parks, the photographer, wrote in the forward to ”Harlem: The Vision of Morgan and Marvin Smith” (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). They shot everybody and everything, from Jackie Robinson teaching his young son how to hold a baseball bat to Nat King Cole dancing at his wedding to W. E. B. DuBois recording a speech in a studio. The New York Black Yankees live forever in their team photograph, as does Maya Angelou as a lightly clad modern dancer, long before she became a published writer.

Morgan and Marvin Smith were born in Nicholasville, Kentucky, on February 16, 1910. Morgan died in Manhattan on February 17, 1993, at the age of 83. Marvin died in Manhattan on November 12, 2003, at the age of 93.