James Barnor to receive photography honor at 97
The Ghanaian photographer will be honored in London on 15 April 2027, with a career retrospective opening at Somerset House the following day.
Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, 97, has been named the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award for the 2027 Sony World Photography Awards, the World Photography Organisation announced.
The presentation is scheduled for 15 April 2027 in London. Somerset House will host a retrospective opening on 16 April and continuing through 3 May 2027, bringing together archival material and more than 50 photographs spanning his career.
Barnor documented Ghana’s independence in 1957, including Kwame Nkrumah’s declaration that the country was free from British rule. Delays in processing his film prevented those images from appearing in newspapers. He had opened his portrait studio, Ever Young, in Accra’s Jamestown district in 1953.
After moving to Britain in 1959, Barnor studied at Medway College of Art and worked as a color printer. His assignments for Drum magazine included fashion photographs and portraits of Black models and celebrities, alongside images documenting London’s African diaspora during the 1960s.
He returned to Ghana in 1970 after training with Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium and Germany, helping establish Ghana’s first commercial laboratory for color processing. His work has since been exhibited at institutions including the Serpentine Gallery, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Modern Art.
