Johny Pitts is a self taught artist who works with words and images. He is the author of the multiple award winning Afropean: Notes from Black Europe (Penguin), which is currently translated into 9 languages, including Spanish, French, German, Polish and Portuguese.
Johny has written and photographed for The Guardian, The New York Times, The British Journal of Photography, Conde Nast Traveller and Dazed & Confused. He has held exhibitions at Foam Gallery Amsterdam, Stills Edinburgh, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and The Photographers Gallery London. His work is held in the permanent collection at the V&A.
Home is not a Place, a collaboration with TS Eliot prize winning poet Roger Robinson, was a Waterstones and Guardian book of the year and shortlisted for a British Book Award. ‘Visibility’, a short essay for Tate’s ‘Look Again’ series, was ‘Highly commended for accessible art writing’ at the 2024 Historians of British Art Book Prize.
Johny holds British and US Passports, is a member of the European Institute Advisory Board at UCL and a European Young Leader. He has lectured at The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, The London School of Economics, and served as the 20th Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Photo © Antony Cairns