Raphael Albert was born in Grenada in the Caribbean in 1935. He worked in odd jobs, before immigrating to London in 1953, where he studied photography at Ealing Technical College. He subsequently worked as a freelance photographer for Black British newspapers, eventually specialising in photographing Black British beauty pageants. He founded the beauty pageant, Miss Black and Beautiful, followed by Miss Teenager of the West Indies in Great Britain, and Miss West Indies in Great Britain in 1974, which not only provided a space for Afro-Caribbean women to express themselves through fashion and style, but also served as a means of asserting their visibility in an era when mainstream fashion and lifestyle platforms often marginalised Black women.
Photographer Raphael Albert was born a twin and one of ten siblings in Grenada, in the Caribbean, in 1935. He worked in odd jobs, including selling his artwork to tourists on the beach and sweeping out a photographer's studio. Struggling to make a living, he moved to London, England in 1953, bringing only a few possessions, including an old Kodak camera. He studied photography at Ealing Technical College while working part-time at a Lyons cake factory. He was subsequently employed as a freelance photographer for Black British newspapers, including The Gleaner, Caribbean Times, New World and West Indian World, for whom one of his first assignments was documenting the Miss Jamaica beauty contest. Closer to home, he documented the West Indian communities in Hammersmith and Fulham, in west London, by taking photographs at weddings, christenings, and other social events. He also took studio portraits of local families in his home. Albert's expertise gradually led to him being hired regularly to take photographs of Black British beauty pageants. In 1970, he founded the local beauty pageant, Miss Black and Beautiful, followed by Miss Teenager of the West Indies in Great Britain, Miss West Indies in Great Britain and Miss Grenada in 1974, with the aim of highlighting the ‘unseen beauty and talent’ of Black girls (Woodman 1977, p. 11). These beauty pageants not only provided a space for Afro-Caribbean women to express themselves through fashion and style, but also served as a means of asserting their visibility in an era when mainstream fashion and lifestyle platforms often ignored or marginalised Black women. They also offered a platform to challenge traditional beauty standards that were influenced by the social, cultural, and political contexts of that time, with Albert’s photographs serving ‘as testament to this profound moment of self-articulation and collective celebration in London’s pan Afro-Caribbean communities’ (Creative Boom).
In an interview, Albert acknowledged that he did not begin with the idea of having only Black competitors, but that the white girls all dropped out, saying they could not compete (Woodman 1977, p. 11). Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, he organised and photographed various beauty pageants, eventually establishing his own production company, Albert Promotions; his own magazine, Charisma, in 1984; and the associated Albert's Girl Academy of Modelling. Meticulously documenting the rituals of pageantry, his photographs revealed the ‘hedonistic confidence in a new generation of black women coming of age in Britain during the 1970s’ (Khaleeli 2016). They featured, for instance, the pageant queens standing before an audience, such as the image of Miss Caribbean Queen with her fellow competitors from the 1970s, or celebrating their victories. Other photographs captured junior models posing for their portfolios in Albert's studio, located on Blythe Road in West London. In Albert’s ‘frontal, uncompromising portraits, [he] captured a sense of camaraderie and joy often missing from contemporary depictions of women by the beauty industry’ (Serafinowicz 2016, p. 270). According to curator Renee Mussai, Black women were able to participate in mainstream beauty pageants, but only if they conformed to ‘Eurocentric’ beauty standards. Although Albert’s pageants were no less objectifying than Miss World, they provided a unique opportunity to challenge traditional white standards of beauty. Mussai pointed out that Black beauty pageants were about ‘occupying a space that has historically negated black women’, adding that by naming one 'Miss Black and Beautiful', Albert ‘was deliberately echoing the Black Power slogan ‘Black is Beautiful, which sought to overturn the way black features – skin tones, hair types – had been denigrated for centuries’ (cited in Khaleeli 2016).
In 2007 Albert showcased a display of his work entitled Miss West Indies in Great Britain: Celebrating 30 Years of Beauty Pageants (1963-1993) during Black History Month at the Hammersmith and Fulham Information Centre. This exhibition helped to raise awareness of Albert's photography as a valuable form of social documentation and a significant record of Black British fashion and style. Raphael Albert died in London, England in 2009. His work was featured posthumously in Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience, 1950s-1990s at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2015), alongside other diaspora artists, including Neil Kenlock, Armet Francis and Norman ‘Normski’ Anderson. A major solo exhibition of his photographs, curated by Renee Mussai, was organised by Autograph at Rivington Place, London (2016) and the Arena Gallery, Birmingham (2018). In 2017, Tate Britain presented an exhibition on diasporic experience from the Caribbean and West Africa to London, Stan Firm Inna Inglan: Black Diaspora in London, 1960s-70s, bringing together works by eight photographers who had documented Black communities, including Albert, Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi, Dennis Morris and Neil Kenlock. In the UK public domain, Albert’s work is represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum Collection; his photographs were acquired by the V&A as part of the Staying Power project, a five-year partnership with the Black Cultural Archives.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Raphael Albert]
Publications related to [Raphael Albert] in the Ben Uri Library