Shawn Walker

Photographer Shawn W. Walker was born on November 26, 1940 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, New York to Florine Walker and William Fletcher. In 1949, he was first introduced to photography through his uncle who was an avid photographer. He later enrolled in Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954 where he majored in photography. He earned his B.A. degree in photography from Empire State College in New York, New York in 1980.

In 1960, Walker started documenting life on his block, 117th Street, and the Harlem neighborhood. That work led to his “Drug” series which examined the drug problems in Harlem and was featured in an Essence Magazine exposé in 1970. This series inspired other series, including his longest-running Parade Series. A photographer for HARYOU-ACT, in 1963, Walker was hired by the Harlem Daily, a community newspaper, as a photographer. That same year, he was invited to become a founding member of Kamoinge, a black photography collective that included Roy DeCarava, Herbert Randall, Ray Francis, and ten other photographers. In 1965, Walker joined the Third World Newsreel as a founding member and travelled internationally, including to places like Cuba, where he worked as a cinematographer and photographer for the organization. Walker travelled to Guyana in 1972; and, in 1973, Walker’s photographs were featured in Kamoinge’s magazine, Black Photographers Annual.

After teaching in various community programs, Walker began teaching at Teacher’s College in New York City in the late 1950s. Walker also taught at CW Post in Long Island, New York, City University of New York (CUNY) York College, CUNY Queensborough Community College, the International Center for Photography, Pratt University, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College, and CUNY City College, where he taught for twenty-five years. In 2012, Walker joined the United Federation of Teachers.

During his career, Walker’s photography has been featured in numerous exhibits nationally and internationally from the late 1960s to the present. These included “Shadow, Dreams and Manifestations” at the Cinque Gallery and “There is a World Through Our Eyes” at the Rockland State Museum in 1993. That same year, Walker’s art was displayed in the Baobab Center in Rochester, New York and Calumet Gallery in New York, New York. In 2018, the Steven Kasher Gallery featured Walker’s work in his first solo exhibition. Then, the Bruce Silverstein gallery featured Walker in an exhibition entitled Lost and Found. Other venues that have displayed Walker’s work include The Smithsonian Institute, Vassar College, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the International Center for Photography, the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, the Whitney Museum, the Getty Museum, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Walker’s work is also collected at the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art. He was a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts grant.

Walker resides in Harlem in New York, New York.

Shawn W. Walker was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 16, 2024.