An Evening with Gerald Cyrus

Join us for an evening with the photographer Gerald Cyrus (SVA MFA Photo/Video, ‘92). A member of the historic Kamoinge photography collective, Cyrus’ work has been widely exhibited and published. Cyrus has photographed extensively worldwide, notably in Cuba, Brazil, New Orleans, Camden, and Philadelphia, where he currently lives. His recent books include Stormy Monday: New York’s Uptown Jazz Scene and Harlem Nights, 1990-2001.

Gerald Cyrus was born in 1957 in Los Angeles, CA and took up photography there in 1984. In 1990 he moved to New York City to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts (SVA), which he obtained in 1992. While at SVA, Cyrus interned at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and began work on "Kinship", a project focusing on African-American family life. In 1994, he started frequenting the nightclubs and bars in Harlem and photographed the vibrant music scene in that historic neighborhood for over six years. The resulting body of work, entitled Stormy Monday: New York’s Uptown Jazz Scene, was published as a book in 2008.

In 2000, Cyrus moved to Philadelphia, PA and began photographing in that city as well as the nearby city of Camden, NJ. Cyrus has also photographed extensively in Bahia, Brazil and in New Orleans (before and after Hurricane Katrina) where his family has an extensive history. In 2016 he spent a short time in Havana, Cuba where he was able to explore the rich street culture there.

Cyrus has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work in Syracuse, NY and twice at the Sacatar Foundation in Bahia, Brazil. He has also been awarded artist’s fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

His photographs are in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Amistad Center at the Wadsworth Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the New York Public Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia, among many others. As mentioned above, his

book Stormy Monday: New York’s Uptown Jazz Scene was published in 2008. A catalog from his show at Haverford College, Portrait of Camden in Photographs, 2001-2008 was published in 2013. And in 2022, Café Royal Books in England published his book Harlem Nights, 1990-2001. Cyrus currently lives in Philadelphia and is also a member of the historic photographers’ collective Kamoinge, Inc.

Tuesday, February 25th, 2024

6:30 pm

214 East 21st Street - 1st Floor - Big Room

Host or Publisher SVA MFA Photography, Video and Related Media