Ron Tarver was born in Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma in 1957. He received a B.A. in Journalism and Graphic Arts at Northeastern Oklahoma State University. He has been on staff at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1983 earning honors form the National Society of Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association/University of Missouri Pictures of the Year competition, World Press Photo Awards, and other state and regional awards.
The artist has received fellowships and a grant form the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and the National Geographic Society respectively. In 1993, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant to explore the lives of modern day African American cowboys, with images still accessible on the National Geographic website. In 1997, he was named one of the Delaware Valley’s “50 Rising Stars in the Arts†by Seven Arts Magazine. In 2001 Tarver was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, one of the largest fellowships for an individual artist, carrying a $50,000 prize, and he also won the Margaret Danby Visual Arts Award from the Black Liberated Arts Center, Oklahoma City.
Tarver’s photographs have been exhibited both nationally and internationally and are in many corporate, private, and museum collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art and the State Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Corporate collections include Banana Republic, Johnson and Johnson, Hyatt and Sheraton Hotels. His photographs are included in the traveling exhibition and book, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers by Deborah Willis, and in Committed to the Image, at the Brooklyn Museum.
The artist’s images from the recently published book, We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq, will be on exhibit at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia May-August 2004. Ron also loves cooking Sunday dinners for his wonderful family, including; Riley, Wes, Michaela and Kristin.
