Errol Sawyer

Errol Sawyer (August 8, 1943) is an American photographer and son of playwright Robert Earl Sawyer. He currently lives and works in Amsterdam, Holland. According to Sawyer, "a picture is good when it leaves room for you to imagine".
Biography
Early life
Errol Sawyer was born Errol Stanley Sawyer, baptized Errol Francis Sawyer, in Miami, Florida. He is the son of Robert Earl Sawyer (June 5, 1923 - November 11, 1994), an African-American playwright, whose family emigrated from Nassau, Bahamas, to Miami, Florida, and Mamie Lucille Donaldson, an African-American Cherokee Indian, whose family lived in Bainbridge, Georgia.
In 1950, at the age of seven, Errol Sawyer moved with his mother and sister from Miami, Florida, to Harlem, New York, and three years later to the Bronx. In 1961, he graduated from James Monroe High School. From 1962 until 1966 he studied history and political science at New York University and moved from the Bronx to Greenwich Village. Greenwich Village was the fertile ground that exposed him to the world of art and culture, and, just as importantly, the game of chess which is a lingering passion. Like so many of his contemporaries, he was seduced as well as inspired by the spirit of the Sixties and often refers to the profound impact the concert at Woodstock had on his life. At Mickey Ruskin's famed club, Max's Kansas City, he met Jimi Hendrix, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol and Diane Arbus who made a portrait of Errol in her studio.
Career
In 1968 Errol Sawyer found his vocation as a photographer while traveling in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. He bought his first camera, a Kowa, in 1966 and became a professional photographer in 1969. In the beginning of his career he was influenced by the photographers James Moore, Bill Silano, Richard Avedon, Gosta Peterson and Rico Pullman. Living and working in Paris and London in the early 1970's, he received commissions for Elle, Dépêche Mode and French Vogue. In 1973 he discovered Christie Brinkley as a picture model in Paris, made her very first model pictures and convinced John Casablancas to accept her in his Elite Model Management. In 1978 Sawyer returned to New York and worked for American Vogue, New York Magazine, and many other magazines. During this time, his efforts were concentrated in commercial fashion and beauty photography. Meanwhile, he continued to work on street reportage.
Since 1984, Sawyer has devoted his his energies towards special projects assignments in the commercial arena. He has has worked on multicultural beauty projects for L'Oréal, Vis-A-Vis Magazine and others. However, most of his time is concentrated in documentary and fine art photography. Sawyer makes black and white analogue pictures with natural light in the streets of New York, London, Paris and Amsterdam, where he has resided since 1999. He photographs people, city scenes, graffiti and perspectives in public and semi public space, at parks, streets and underground stations.
In 2001 Herman Hoeneveld wrote in the Dutch PF Magazine, "Errol Sawyer could be justifiably called a cultural philosopher — He is a writing photographer, who seems to press for consciousness and contemplation. He calls on our common sense to not allow our feelings to be crushed by the unbridled rush for consumption." In the end of the same article Hoeneveld writes "The beauty of the (analogue) photography, the craftsmanship and skills of it (in brief, the inherent inbuilt braiding of the medium with possibilities of self-expression) together form, with ‘handwritten’ observations on the state of society, a plea for humanity in a world of money and glitter."
In 2003 Dr. Franziska Puhan-Schulz said in an introduction to Sawyer's Poverty exhibition in Frankfurt, "The pictures of Errol Sawyer are always surprisingly intimate. He comes close to the faces of people but leaves them nevertheless their pride. The urban anthropologist Richard Sennet has pointed out 'encapsulation' and 'looking away' as the most outstanding characteristics of our urban presence. By letting the portrayed persons become our immediate opposites, Errol Sawyer provokes the viewer to more closely inspect situations that are likely to be overlooked in the every day continuous motion of the city."
Since 2006, Sawyer has been a guest professor of photography at Technical University Delft in Holland. According to Sawyer, "a photograph should not only articulate a point in time and space but simultaneously provoke a re-evaluation of that particular point. It should stimulate our perception of what we take for granted about physical phenomena." He challenges his students to articulate their perceptions of day-to-day phenomena through analyses of their images in relation to history and their personal philosophies.
In 2007, Sawyer opened a daylight studio in Amsterdam and, since 2008, he has had his own professional darkroom for archival printing of his black and white fine art pictures.
Currently Sawyer is working on Reflections, a street reportage project of images that make the viewer think about their origin and meaning.
Activism
A lifelong activist and polemicist for human rights, particularly for minorities in the fashion and beauty industry and the world of fine art, Sawyer has petitioned leaders and organizations such as the NAACP, Rainbow Push, National Urban League and the Black Baptist Convention, as well as African-American celebrities and athletes, to function in solidarity with those who speak truth to power regarding human rights and accountability. He insists upon “literal” as opposed to “virtual” employment of minorities in the fashion and beauty industry and substantially increased representation of minorities in the world of fine art.
His father, playwright Robert Earl Sawyer, was concerned with the same issues a generation earlier and said in an interview with Melody Malmberg called "The Outsiders" in The Weekly, Altadena, 1984: “It’s not a problem being black — the problem rests with the undeveloped mentality of those who are in a position to make a moral and intellectual decision about the fundamental equality of minorities. And by having this malfunction they deny the literary and screen world the right to enjoy other cultures and musical and writing geniuses.
And on the other side, the lethargy of the black businessman — and the lack of support of black people — also has contributed to the demise and decimation of black talent. It seems to be an unholy union of white discrimination and black lethargy. But the problem is ‘not’ being black.”
Exhibitions & Acquisitions
Errol Sawyer has held exhibitions at:
4th Street Gallery (New York, USA)
Royal Photographic Society (Bath, England)
La Musée de la Photographie (Bièvre, France)
Foto Huset Gallery (Götenburg, Sweden)
No Name Gallery (Basel, Switzerland)
La Chambre Claire Gallery (Paris, France)
His work has been purchased by:
Eric Franck (London, England)
La Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, France)
Schomburg Library of Black Culture (Harlem, New York)
Fadi Zahar ( Paris, France)
Manfred Heiting (Amsterdam, Holland)
Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, Texas)

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu