Armet Francis was born in
Saint Elizabeth Parish, in rural Jamaica, in 1945. He was left in the care of his grandparents at the age of three when his parents moved to
London, England, 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 a freelance photographer for fashion magazines and advertising campaigns. 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 in London when
The Black Triangle series was exhibited there in 1983. In 1988, Francis was a co-founder of the
Association of Black Photographers (now Autograph ABP). Francis was one of three pioneering Jamaican-born photographers – the others being
Charlie Phillips and
Neil Kenlock – whose work was showcased in the 2005/2006 exhibition
Roots to Reckoning at the
Museum of London, which in 2009 with the assistance of
Art Fund acquired the "Roots to Reckoning archive", comprising 90 photographs of London's black community from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The British Library conducted an interview (C459/214) with Francis in 2013 for its Oral History of British Photography collection. Photographs by Francis featured prominently in
Staying Power, the collaborative project mounted in 2015 by the
Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the
Black Cultural Archives. "The arresting first image in the V&A museum is Jamaican photographer Armet Francis's
Self-portrait in Mirror (1964), a curiously intimate and honest image showing Armet setting up his shot directly in front of a mirror," noted the reviewer for
Culture Whisper, while Brennavan Sritharan commented in the
British Journal of Photography: "Self-portraiture is something of a sub-theme, with Armet Francis' tender yet assertive self-portrait leading the exhibit." In February 2022, Francis was named in CasildART's list of the top six Black British photographers, alongside
Charlie Phillips,
James Barnor,
Neil Kenlock,
Pogus Caesar and
Vanley Burke. In 2023, Autograph ABP mounted the exhibition
Armet Frances: Beyond the Black Triangle (on show from 22 September 2023 to 20 January 2024), curated by
Mark Sealy. Bringing together four decades of work by Francis, it was described in a review by
Aesthetica magazine as "an incisive and impressive display that emphasises: Francis is one of the greats." ==Exhibitions==