Armet Francis

Armet Francis
Born	1945 St Elizabeth, Jamaica
Years active	1969–present
Known for	The Black Triangle Roots to Reckoning

Armet Francis (born in 1945) is a Jamaican-born photographer and publisher who lives in London. He has been documenting and chronicling the lives of people of the African diaspora for more than 40 years and his assignments have included work for The Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Supplement, BBC and Channel 4. He has exhibited worldwide and his work is in collections including those of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Museum of London.

Armet Francis was born in St Elizabeth, in rural Jamaica. He was left in the care of his grandparents at the age of three when his parents moved to London, UK, where Francis joined them seven years later in 1955. After leaving school at 14, he worked for an engineering firm in Bromley, before finding a job as an assistant in a West End photographic studio, and going on to forge a career as freelance photographer for fashion magazines and advertising campaigns.

He has said: "In 1969 I embarked on a lifetime project.... I was living and working in the first world, materially that is, but becoming more aware of inequalities to the third world, to be more specific the Black World. As a Black photographer I started to realise I had no social documentary images in my work.... I went back [to Jamaica] in 1969.... I had been away 14 years, it would take another 14 years to make sense of this project." Following his participation at Festac '77 (the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture) in Lagos, Nigeria, he became devoted to photographing the people of the African diaspora.

He became the first Black photographer to have a solo exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery when The Black Triangle series was exhibited there in 1983. He published a book also entitled The Black Triangle the following year, and Children of the Black Triangle was produced four years later.

...
Wikipedia