BIOGRAPHY

Gerald Cyrus was born in 1957 in Los Angeles, CA and began photographing there in 1984. In 1990 he moved to New York City and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in 1992.  While at SVA, he also interned at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture under the supervision of Deborah Willis. During his time in New York, Cyrus photographed regularly on the streets of Manhattan, Harlem and Brooklyn, and in 1994, he started frequenting the nightclubs in Harlem and photographed the vibrant music scene in that historic neighborhood for over six years. The resulting body of work, entitled “Stormy Monday”, was published as a book in 2008.

In 2000, Cyrus moved to Philadelphia, PA and began photographing in that city as well as the nearby city of Camden, NJ.  He has also photographed extensively in Bahia, Brazil where he was a fellow at the Sacatar Foundation and in New Orleans, LA (before and after Hurricane Katrina) where he has family history.

Cyrus currently lives in Philadelphia and teaches part-time at Haverford College. He is also a member of the Kamoinge, Inc.  photographers’ collective.