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A collection of photographs by the Birmingham photographer, artist and film-maker Pogus Caesar. The archive includes photographs taken during and in the wake of the Handsworth Riots in September 1985, as well as black artists and musicians in Birmingham, from about 1980 to 2000.
Pogus Caesar was born in St Kitts, West Indies, and grew up in Birmingham. An award winning broadcaster (Prix Circom Regionale 1995), he has produced and directed numerous programmes for Central TV, Carlton TV ('Xpress', 'Respect', 'Drumbeat'), BBC TV ('A-Force') and was the first Chairman of the Birmingham International Film & TV Festival.
In 1993 he set up Windrush Productions Ltd, a film, television and radio production company, and has directed renowned individuals including Lennox Lewis, Stevie Wonder, Jada Pinkett Smith, Prince, Sir Paul McCartney, Isaac Hayes and the late R&B superstar Aaliyah.
At an early age Caesar scribbled and sketched on anything he could find lying around the one room that he shared with his family in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. At seven years old Caesar found a creative release in drawing and painting, later taking inspiration from the work of Georges Seurat, the French pointillist painter who created pictures using dots, "I couldn't afford paintbrushes so I had to use old fountain pens instead". In his teens he began to sell work in Birmingham's Rag Market, his pointillist paintings were so successful that within a few years he was exhibiting in major galleries such as Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Herbert Art Gallery and the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield. A highlight of this period in his career was presenting one of his pieces to Princess Diana in 1982, a painting called 'A New Approach'.
Caesar is best known for 35mm black and white photography and unique and compelling photo montages, created using traditional methods of cutting, burning and breaking images, using his photographs, resin, sand, dirt, pieces of cloth and other household materials. "I like simplicity and prefer using fixed focus Nikon or Canon cameras, I just photograph the world around me, things I find interesting".
Caesar's works are represented in many private and public collections overseas and in Britain including the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service and Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery.
Biographical information courtesy of OOM Gallery.
The archive of Pogus Caesar [MS 2364] is available at Birmingham City Archives.
View photographs by Pogus Caesar from the colletion "Muzik Kinda Sweet".
For further information and to see more work by Pogus Caesar, go to www.oomgallery.net
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