Adger Cowans is an American fine arts photographer and abstract painter.
[6] While in New York, he joined the Kamoinge Workshop, an artists collective dedicated to showing the African Diaspora though photography, soon after it was established in 1963.
[7] In 2001, he was awarded the Lorenzo il Magnifico alla Carriera in recognition of his Distinguished Career at Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art and also a recipient of the John Hay Whitney Fellowship and the Martin Luther King, Jr Visiting Scholars Award, Wayne State University.
[10] The legendary photographer Gordon Parks, called him one of the most significant artists of our time and noted, “Adger’s individualism sets him apart, simply because he follows his own convictions”.
[11][12] The 2020 Whitney Museum exhibition about the Kamoinge Workshop, Working Together chronicles Cowans' and other founding members' photographs of their communities during the 1960s social changes.