Department Honors Retired Faculty Member C. Daniel Dawson
Dawson recognized for his six-decade career as a professional photographer and adjunct professor.
Each year AAADS recognizes a faculty member or an administrator who champions the department’s mission “to envision, transform, and engage.” This year the department honored the unparalleled contributions and brilliant career of C. Daniel Dawson.
The event featured a keynote/conversation with Dawson and Kellie Jones, professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies and the Hans Hofmann Professor of Modern Art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.
Dawson’s six-decade esteemed career has made him a luminary in New York Art scene and with Global Black Studies creative and intellectual circles. He has taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas, including several years as an adjunct professor in the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS). As a photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, and consultant he has shaped the discourse and institutions in African Diasporic arts and culture.
Dawson was a key member of the Kamoinge Workshop — an arts collective of photographers formed in 1963. He served as curator of photography, film and video at the Studio Museum in Harlem, director of special projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center, and curatorial consultant and director of education at the Museum for African Art. He has lectured widely, including at Yale University, Princeton University, New York University, University of California, Berkeley, the New School for Social Research, House of World Cultures-Berlin, Tropenmuseum-Amsterdam and Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil.
An award-winning photographer, Dawson has shown his work in more than 30 exhibitions. He has also curated more than 40 exhibitions, including “Harlem Heyday: The Photographs of James Van Der Zee” and “The Sound I Saw: The Jazz Photographs of Roy DeCarava.” Dawson has been associated with many prize-winning films, including “Head and Heart” by James Mannas and “Capoeira of Brazil” by Warrington Hudlin.
As a testament to his prodigious contributions to the arts, the Indigo Arts Alliance, a non-profit artist residency, recently established the C. Daniel Dawson Curatorial and Research Fellowship. Last fall, Dawson’s photographs were featured in the highly praised inaugural exhibition that opened the Studio Museum’s new home to the public.
Dawson was honored at the Administrators and Faculty Dinner of the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, held April 8 at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial Education Center in Washington Heights.
