Culture

Earlier this summer, SFJAZZ, the organization that has produced the San Francisco Jazz Festival for almost 40 years, unveiled a public installation made up of 31 large scale black and white photographs taken by Ohio University graduate Chuck Stewart in the windows of the vacant San Francisco Unified School District building in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

Stewart, who passed away in 2017, spent a lifetime creating images of artists such as Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and many more. Icon: Music Through the Lens is a six-part documentary series exploring the fascinating world of music photography that Stewart spent so much of his life working in, premiering on WOUB-TV Friday, July 16 at 9 p.m. ET.

WOUB Culture spoke with Nwaka Onwusa, Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, about Stewart’s photographic legacy shortly after the unveiling of SFJAZZ’s installation.