Brenda Agard

Brenda Patricia Agard (20 August 1961 – 29 October 2012) was a Black-British photographer, poet and storyteller who was most active in the 1980s, when she participated in some of the first art exhibitions organized by Black-British artists in the United Kingdom. Agard's work focused on creating "affirming images centred on the resilience of the Black woman," according to art historian Eddie Chambers.
Photographic career.
Agard participated in several group shows in the burgeoning Black Arts movement in London in the 1980s, an early example of which was "Mirror Reflecting Darkly", a 1985 group show at the Brixton Art Gallery organized by eleven black women. The stated goal of the show was to "exhibit the diversity within the concept of black women and challenge people's expectations, perpetuated by stereotypes."
Later in 1985, Agard participated in the seminal show "The Thin Black Line" at the Institute of Contemporary Art London, curated by Lubaina Himid, who wrote in the forward to the exhibition's catalogue: "We are eleven of the hundreds of creative Black Women in Britain. We are here to stay."
Agard was also a member of "The Black Photographers Group", a project organized by artist and BLK Art Group co-founder Eddie Chambers, whose objective was "the credible insertion of black photography into mainstream art and photographic venues in Britain." Others in the group besides Chambers and Agard included: David A. Bailey, Marc Boothe, Godfrey Brown, Dave Lewis, Ingrid Pollard, and Suzanne Roden.
In 2011, the Tate Britain exhibited a retrospective of shows curated by Himid in the 1980s titled "Thin Black Line(s)". Agard's photography was involved in two of the three shows referenced in the exhibit: "The Thin Black Line" and "Black Woman Time Now".
Writing.
Agard was a founding member of "Polareyes: A Journal by and about Black Women Working in Photography". The publication launched in 1987 with an editorial group including Brenda Agard, Similola Coker, Mumtaz Karimjee, Jenny McKenzie, Lesley Mitchell, Amina Patel, Samena Rana, Molly Shinhat, and Maxine Walker. The inaugural issue included an essay by Agard titled "Photography: An Extension of" which outlined her intentions as a photographer.
Agard was also a playwright and a poet, whose writing, according to scholar Maggie Humm, drew its "vocabulary primarily from black English and Caribbean dialect", and helped "establish some important characteristics of black feminist writing".
Four poems by Agard – "Nobody", "Business Partners", "Nothing Said", and "Black Truth" – are collected in the anthology "Watchers and Seekers: Creative Writing by Black Women", edited by Rhonda Cobham and Merle Collins.
Legacy.
In contrast to several of her close contemporaries, like Maud Sulter and Donald Rodney, who have been recognized by museums and gallery retrospectives, Agard "remains tragically consigned to obscurity despite having created a cutting-edge body of work", according to art historian Celeste-Marie Bernier.
External Sources.
Forty-one photographs taken by Phil Polglaze at the South London Art Gallery on 8 September 1988 during the private view of the exhibition "Influences: The Art of Sokari Douglas Camp, Keith Piper, Lubaina Himid, Simone Alexander, Joseph Olubo, Brenda Agard." Several photographs are of the artists with his or her artwork, including Agard.
Brenda Patricia Agard on the African American Visual Artists Database