esther anderson
Esther Anderson. Self-portrait, London. 1971
“During the Sixties and the Seventies, I documented our culture through music, dance and photography, while exploring my own representation as an actress in Hollywood and London with artists like Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando and Sammy Davis Jr. I also placed myself behind the camera as a film-maker, launching my first film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. My collaboration with Bob is the crystallisation of two young rebel souls into one through total art: love, music, photography, cinema, architecture, Ethiopianism and political resistance. We were both radical and uncompromising. Our best creation was our commitment to helping spread reggae music and the Rastafarian message of peace and love to the world. Marley is to me one of the recipients of Jamaican social history, like Paul Bogle and Marcus Garvey. Bob and the Wailers were able to synthesise the struggle of the sufferers in Jamaica.”
Esther Anderson, Jamaica Observer
“Taken mostly in 1973—six years before Marley had become a symbol of pan-Africanism, and known for his solidarity with Third World resistance—these photographs depict a man of poetry, music and Rastafarian spirituality. There is a vulnerability and ordinariness to him: in one picture, he helps to change a tyre on the sun-parched streets of Kingston. In another, he stands on the shore of a beach, pained in thought. A black-and-white photograph captures an intimate, playful moment where he draws Ms Anderson close for a dance. He is a young rebel, pursuing self-discovery and self-liberation, but unsure of his footing.”
Photographs by Esther Anderson, 1973
Photograph by Esther Anderson, 1973
“Esther Anderson is a towering figure in the UK Caribbean community, a polymath, who acts and writes as well as makes films. This former Miss Jamaica also photographed Bob Marley for early publicity shorts including the cover of Catch a Fire. She is renowned as a champion of Jamaican culture.”
Photograph by Esther Anderson, 1973
Photograph by Esther Anderson, 1973
“I wanted to photograph him in the light of Jamaica, showing the colour of our skin the way it should be shown. I remember him saying, “Gosh, you’re taking many pictures of me!” The camera loved him and he loved to show off – he photographed like a dream. By the time he stopped running, the evening sun had fallen and reflected like burnt gold on the surface of the water. I went in for a closeup, and that’s when he clasped his hands. To me, the photo is like a prayer, as if Bob was saying: “I am looking out at Babylon and I trust you.” The pose was completely natural, but I knew as soon as he did it that here lay the decisive moment.”
Ian Opolot (The Guardian)
Photograph by Esther Anderson. 1973
The first poster that launched Bob Marley’s international career
“A Rebel Prophet" documents Marley's rise as a political rebel, a freedom fighter, a musical poet and the voice of the Third World. This series of photographs illustrates an emergence, a becoming, a transition between a street poet, a rebel who was political - but resisting the fact that he was and ultimately the man that Bob Marley was to become. Time Magazine and the BBC named him "Artist of the Century". At this time he had not yet evolved into the Rastafarian that he would fully become a few years before his death. In 1973, when the pictures were shot, Bob, Wailers and Reggae music was still unbeknown to the world. The pictures represent the launch of a fellow Jamaican Artist, Reggae Music, and The Rastafarians, as well as documenting the making of a legend. This retrospective, through a series of intimate photographs taken by Anderson, is perhaps one of the most important events post Marley's death, which marks Esther's personal journey with Marley.”
“Over a forty-year career in music and films Esther Anderson has created a unique series of photographs featuring most prominently Bob Marley and The Wailers”
The Photographers’ Gallery (London. UK)
“Anderson would prove to be one of many Winham took under her wing and sought to see excel in whatever endeavour they were interested in. Anderson went on to play a starring role in the 1973 film A Warm December alongside Sidney Poitier. Despite Anderson’s self-driven personality, she too benefitted from Winham’s affirming presence. “Francine showed me how to use a camera, how to mix the liquids [used in film processing], lighting. She gave me cameras and said, go on, go off to Germany. So I went to Germany and took tons of pictures. That was my first freelance gig.”
“The more I got into photography,” Anderson continues, “I realised [Francine] opened up something inside of me that no one had done before to show me that I have many gifts and how I can tap into them.” One of Winham’s greatest gifts was her ability to uplift others. Besides her captivating photography, the influence she had on those around her remains a key part of her legacy.”
Ian Opolot (The Quietus)
The Oscar-winning cinematographer Peter Biziou with Esther Anderson on location in London during production of her film.
“In 2015 actress, director and photographer, Esther Anderson, received THE VOICE OF A WOMAN - DISTINCTION AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO FILM in a career that has spanned over 50 years”
The Museum of Modern Art
“Black Intimacy explores the ways in which black familial, romantic, and platonic relationships have been portrayed onscreen, with a particular focus on black filmmakers' attempts at navigating between intimate, personal stories and more broadly political material. Given the legacy of American racial politics, can black love be portrayed onscreen without "making a statement" about race, or is it impossible for the personal to be separated from the political?
Comprising 16 films, two shorts, and a television episode, the series highlights the various ways in which love and relationships are colored by the political, across a wide spectrum of perspectives. Several of the films—Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, for instance—deal with a particular kind of black male figure and pay close attention to black male identity and struggle; films like Claudine, A Warm December, and The Inkwell portray very different types of black romances and family structures to illustrate a broader scope of love and relationships; the notion of how black women are treated as love interests and how their needs are explored and honored is at the heart of Loosing Ground; and black queer identity, intimacy, and vulnerability are front and center in Looking for Langston and The Watermelon Woman.”
Sidney Poitier and Esther Anderson in A Warm December
“I arrived in New York and checked in at my friends Marjorie and Robert Loggia's Sutton Place apartment where I stayed during all my visits to the United States. At the office Sidney greeted me with his usual charm and warm smile. I would have to allow him to 'darken' me and I would have to wear an afro, as I had done in the film One More Time as Sammy Davis Jr's girlfriend. It was the end of the '60s and Black Power and the Black Panthers still dominated the climate. Black Americans wanted changes. Young, Gifted and Black was a big hit song that stayed in the psyche of the young blacks growing up. As a trained professional, I agreed to everything he wanted to do to make the character come to life. He had wardrobe, hair, and make-up people brought in, and they spent the rest of the day, turning me into what he was looking for. This was the end of 1971. Back in London we met up to go shopping for other off-the-peg clothes he wanted. We chose clothes from all the top British designers of the time while the formal wardrobe was being created by a known designer in New York, and the hairdresser was brought over from Hollywood to quaff my afro wig, and the jewellery was being made to adorn it. We started shooting at the beginning of '72, and wrapped by the autumn. Sidney said he wouldn't edit the film himself but got two of the best British editors in the business, and used cameraman Paul Beeston, who shot To Sir, with Love, 'for luck'. We said our goodbyes and he left London. The film was released in 1974, winning every award at the NAACP of 1975 with Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson serenading us. I wasn't there, I was in Jamaica working with Bob Marley.”
Jamaica Observer (Novia McDonald-Whyte)
Sidney Poitier directing Esther Anderson in A Warm December
Esther Anderson and Sammy Davis Jr in the film One More Time
Jerry Lewis directing Esther Anderson with Sammy Davis Jr in One More Time
“Unseen home movie footage of Bob Marley makes its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival”
Keith Bruce (The Herald)
“In Esther’s collection of photographs Marley stands free from the oppressive shadows of Babylon, elevating his gaze on the horizon of dissent; a succour to the spirit of the downtrodden and the spurned. His becoming and message of self-liberation was a lucid progress that permeated the minds of many and continues to do so to this day.”
Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine
“With her camera she captured Bob Marley and Ras Daniel Hartman together. From behind the lens she recognised that the marriage between the two, Rasta and Reggae, would show the world where the music came from. Her images reflected this realisation and have become among the most iconic portraits of Bob Marley. Her innovation was to marry Rastafarianism's colours and lifestyle within her compositions of the band. "The red, green and gold and all of that were my ideas," she says. "I shot the thing and put it together and sent it over [to London]." The images were used for the first poster of Bob Marley, T-shirts and the album cover of Catch a Fire. Ms Anderson remembers taking the iconic picture of Bob smoking a spliff that is still used to sell his image. "That picture was taken on a beautiful morning. I made him take his shirt off because I loved the colour of his skin. The sunlight hitting on his body reflecting back on my lens. I used Kodak Ektachrome which gives that lovely golden light.”
Ron Bhola (BBC World Service)
