Lessons of the Hour

This sumptuously illustrated artist’s book and reader documents Lessons of the Hour (2019), the ten-screen film installation and series of related photographic artworks by the internationally acclaimed artist Isaac Julien CBE RA (born 1960), which honor the public and private life of one the most important figures in US history: Frederick Douglass. The visionary African American orator, philosopher, intellectual and self-liberated freedom fighter was born into slavery in Maryland and went on to develop a remarkable aesthetic theory through his thinking and writing on abolitionism and Black self-representation through the apparatus of photography. 

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass takes the reader on a journey through Douglass’ life and thinking, and is a vital consideration of his political and aesthetic legacy. This book was honored as a winner in the 2021 American Institute of Graphic Arts 50 Books | 50 Covers design competition. The book also won the 2023 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award.

Published by Delmonico Books · Memorial Art Gallery · Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College · Isaac Julien Studio

Isaac Julien, Cora Gilroy-Ware, Vladimir Seput

Kass Banning, Celeste-Marie Bernier, Jonathan P. Binstock, Warren Crichlow, Paul Gilroy, Cora Gilroy-Ware, Jennifer A. Gonzàlez, John G. Hanhardt, Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. , Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Isaac Julien, Susan Solt, Vron Ware, Deborah Willis