This is the first book dedicated to the legendary Hook Brothers Studio in Memphis, featuring photographs from 1912 to 1983.
Making Beauty introduces the prominent African American commercial photography studio founded by brothers Henry and Robert Hooks Sr. in Memphis, Tennessee. It accompanies a major exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the first to survey their extensive archive. This catalogue positions the Hooks Brothers as activists who used photography to restore racial pride and cultural self-expression. Known for their technical proficiency and artistry, the Hooks Brothers were recognized for their precise and tender portrayals of Black Americans in the region.
The catalogue looks at the Hooks Brothers Studio collection, an archive developed by two generations of Black photographers, stored away and uncatalogued for almost thirty years. It places the Hooks Brothers’ practice in conversation with renowned Black photographers in the U.S. and abroad, such as James Van Der Zee, Addison Scurlock, Seydou Keita and James Barnor, among others, who documented their communities during the same period, to dispel racist imagery. The Hooks Brothers were the most prominent and longest-standing commercial photography enterprise of any race in the Mid-South region of the United States.

Exhibition Schedule:
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
(6 December 2026–5 July 2027)