Making Beauty: Hooks Brothers Studio, 1907-1984

Making Beauty: Hooks Brothers Studio, 1907–1984 introduces the prominent African American commercial photography studio founded by brothers Henry Hooks Sr. and Robert Hooks Sr. in Memphis, Tennessee, at the turn of the twentieth century. The first major survey of their extensive archive, this exhibition positions the Hooks brothers as activists who used photography to restore racial pride and cultural self-expression in an era defined by social and economic exclusion imposed by Jim Crow laws. For nearly eighty years, Henry and Robert—and later their children—photographed their community with dignity, sophistication, and pride.

Drawing its title from the studio’s motto, “Where There’s Beauty We Take It, Where There’s None We Make It,” this exhibition explores the expansive notion of making beauty. As practitioners, the Hooks brothers employed hand-painted backdrops, soft lighting, and retouching techniques to portray their clients at their best. Sitters also actively participated in their own self-making, collaborating with the photographers on props, setting, composition, and pose to express identity, achievement, and social status.

For the Hooks brothers, making beauty was an act of defiance—one that produced affirming images to counter the dominant and oppressive portrayals of African American life. Making Beauty presents a wide range of photographic styles, including studio portraiture and documentary, advertising, and vernacular photographs, across a variety of media, including prints, glass plates, and film negatives. The exhibition is a celebration of the Hooks Brothers Studio’s enduring legacy, its commitment to fostering kinship among Black Americans in the South, and the power of photography through a Black lens.

An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, offering insights into the studio archive with essays by C. Rose Smith, Assistant Curator of Photography, and scholars of photography Dr. Rikki Byrd, Dr. Cheryl Finley, Dr. Earnestine Jenkins, and Dr. Mark Sealy.

Making Beauty: Hooks Brothers Studio, 1907-1984 is curated by C. Rose Smith, Assistant Curator of Photography, and is organized by the Memphis Art Museum and the National Civil Rights Museum.

All exhibitions at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art are underwritten by the MBMA Exhibition Fund: Lead support provided by Kay Clark, and Maggie and Milton Lovell, with additional funding from Anonymous, Irene and Ron Ayotte, Gloria and Kenneth Boyland, Deborah and Bob Craddock, Susan and James Edelman, Debi and Galen Havner, Sally Hergenrader, James R. Humphreys, Betty and George Johnson, Kristen and Jay Keegan, Valerie and Carl Person, Deborah D. Tipton, Bill Townsend, and the Doris S. and Hubert Kiersky Charitable Remainder Trust.