Photographer, artist, archivist, filmmaker, author and curator Pogus Caesar was born in 1953 in St. Kitts in the Caribbean; he immigrated to England at the age of five, settling in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. He found success in his early twenties with his photographs of native New Yorkers, shot using a small camera, and subsequently exhibited in Bradford and Coventry in 1986, as well as a celebrated series of documentary photographs of the 1985 Handsworth Riots and a broad portfolio of photographs of Black musicians from all over the world.
Photographer, artist, archivist, filmmaker, author and curator Pogus Caesar was born in 1953 in St. Kitts in the Caribbean. At the age of five he immigrated to England, settling in the multicultural town of Sparkbrook in the city of Birmingham. In his early twenties, inspired by the Impressionists Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat, he began painting in ink in a Pointillist manner. Although he found little success when trying to exhibit these works in New York, instead his photographs of the city’s residents, shot on a small camera, found instant success and were subsequently exhibited as Instamatic Views of New York (1986) at the National Museum of Film and Photography, Bradford, and in a joint exhibition with fellow Caribbean-born photographer Vanley Burke, entitled Break in the Seal (1986), at the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry. During the 1980s Caesar also worked in British television, firstly, as a journalist on Channel 4’s Black on Black, and then, as a producer and director of entertainment, sport and multicultural programmes for Central Television, Carlton Television and the BBC. During this period he became director of the West Midlands Ethnic Minority Arts service and also became the first Chairman of Birmingham International Film and Television Festival. In 1993 he founded the production company Windrush Productions Ltd.
Caesar is, however, perhaps best-known for his photography. In 1985 he documented the Handsworth Riots, in which two brothers died, 122 people were injured and 50 shops were burned, commenting: ‘Those riots were the result of frustration built up over years of people suffering from poor job prospects, poor housing, poverty, harassment, racism, and a ‘them-and-us’ situation’ (Pogus Caesar, Birmingham Live, 2019). Following the riots, a photograph of a ‘Black bomber’ (taken by John Reardon) was reproduced in several tabloid newspapers, and further profiled Handsworth as a disorderly and dangerous neighbourhood, fuelling racial unrest. Caesar, however, instead ‘worked to present events from the point of view of residents, from behind their curtains or among crowds’ (Kieran Connell, 2012), recalling ‘I was fuelled by adrenaline. I knew I was putting myself in harm’s way – I was a Black man in the middle of a riot remember – but I felt I had to record what was happening, the photographs would be my witness’ (Birmingham Live, 2019). In 2019 Caesar’s photographs of the riots appeared on billboards throughout the city, accompanied by poetry written by the Birmingham poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Caesar stated in an interview with Mike Prince, ‘My thing was always to document, if you have the opportunity just document – and not just people who are famous but ordinary working people who are contributing in some way’ (Life Stories Episode 15: Pogus Caesar, Birmingham TV YouTube Channel, 2015). Caesar continued to document extraordinary events in Birmingham including the 2005 Tornado and the regeneration of the Bullring shopping centre. In 2010 he published the photographic essay Sparkbrook Pride, which included accompanying texts by Zephaniah.
Caesar has also curated numerous exhibitions highlighting artists from the African Caribbean Diaspora. In 1984, together with Lubaina Himid, he co-curated Into the Open for Arts Council England, one of the first touring exhibitions of Black artists including Keith Piper, Claudette Johnson, Eddie Chambers, Sonia Boyce, Veronica Ryan and Tam Joseph, among others, which opened at Mappin Art Gallery Sheffield and toured to the Castle Museum, Nottingham and the Newcastle Media Workshops. Two years later, Caesar helped Aubrey Williams and Bill Ming select artists for Caribbean Expressions in Britain (1986) at the Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service, which included many of the Into the Open artists, and toured to the Central Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton, and Cartwright Hall, Bradford. Caesar is also known for his photographs of Black musicians including Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Grace Jones and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry; a number were published in Muzik Kinda Sweet (2010), with a foreword by the writer Paul Gilroy. In 2018 Caesar was awarded an Honorary Doctorate at Birmingham City University and two years later he revisited his older works Black Skin, White Palm, Same Blood (2008) and Just Wan’t To Be Loved (2017) displaying them on billboards across London, under the title New Billboard Project (2020), in response to the global Black Lives Matter movement. In September 2023 Caesar featured in the longstanding BBC Radio 4 programme 'The Reunion', exploring the foundation of the BLK Art Group. His work can be found in UK public collections including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Pogus Caesar]
Publications related to [Pogus Caesar] in the Ben Uri Library