Jim Alexander Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1935 -

Jim Alexander (born August 7, 1935) is an American documentary photographer, photojournalist, activist, and teacher who is best known for being a “Participant Observer” and his photographs of human rights and black culture. In 1995, he was the first artist selected in the annual “Master Artist” program conducted by the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs. He would later be inducted into The HistoryMakers in 2006.

Alexander was born James Alexander on August 7, 1935, in Waldwick, New Jersey as one of 12 children to auto mechanic David Alexander, and Frances James Alexander. He attended Waldwick Public School and Ramsey High School. He grew up during a time where the opportunities for Blacks in America to economically advance were few.


In 1952, Alexander joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 17. During his time in Naval boot camp in Bainbridge, MD, one event would help shape the course of his entire life; Alexander won his first camera, a Kodak "Brownie Hawkeye" in a friendly dice game. Immediately putting his new camera to use, Alexander sold photographs to the other sailors for fifty cents each.

Once he finished boot camp, he was transferred to a naval base in Charleston, S.C. to begin training as a diesel engineman. While in Charleston he asked the naval base photographer to look over some of his work, and he began teaching him about 35mm and large format photography. After leaving the Navy in 1956, Alexander put photography on hold for several years.[9] He managed a pool hall and detailed cars. He lived above the pool hall, which was called a rooming house. The rooms were rented for $9 a week. That room and tiny bed became Alexander's home during what he called his "street time."

In 1964 he moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey from Paterson where he lived following his discharge and launched his professional career as a freelance photographer.[1] Alexander completed courses for a certificate in business organization and management at Rutgers University, while he worked as general manager of a newspaper delivery service. He also enrolled at New York Institute of Photography (NYIP) and earned a degree in commercial photography in 1968. He later became a part of NYIP Famous Alumni

During the height of the human rights movement, Alexander began documenting the anti-war and civil rights movement, and later the local and national responses to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination in 1968. His photographs included: marches, rallies, conferences, meetings, festivals, concerts, and Black life as a whole. He entitled the body of work Spirits/Martyrs/Heroes and continued to add photographs to the collection over the ensuing years The collection ranges from the 1960s to the present. It encompasses a variety of subjects from the human and civil rights movement, politics, music, art, and everyday individuals who were consistent in their pursuit of equality.

On a bus trip from Ridgewood, New Jersey to New York, Alexander met Eric Maristany. They both were traveling with cameras, so conversation between the two sparked. Maristany worked at a filmstrip company in Ridgewood and invited Alexander to visit the studio. After visiting the studio a few days later, he met owner Richard Bruner, and staff of Bruner Productions; producers of educational and civil rights movement filmstrips. He became a volunteer at the studio after gaining respectability as a documentary photographer. Alexander began freelancing at Bruner Productions.