Professor Jules T. Allen

Jules Allen


Jules T. Allen, Professor, Art and Design, is a celebrated professional photographer, renowned for capturing the powerful and essential truths of the contemporary black experience.

Professor Allen was recently featured in The New York Times for his book Double Up, a collection of his photographs that documents the world of the African-American boxers at Gleason’s famous gym during the late 1970’s.

Originally from San Francisco, California, Professor Allen attended California State University in San Francisco where he studied with Jack Welpott, a respected portrait and landscape photographer. Professor Allen graduated from California State University with both a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s degree in Science in Clinical Counseling Psychology—the latter to facilitate the understanding of human behavior. He then worked as a psychiatric social worker within the criminal justice system in San Francisco, an experience that resulted in a profound shift in his approach to photography.

Upon moving to New York, Professor Allen worked as a commercial photographer while pursuing his artistic vision at Hunter College where he obtained a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. It was at Hunter College that he met and studied with the distinguished African-American photographer, Roy DeCarava.

Professor Allen has received of numerous grants and awards, and his work has been widely exhibited in museums and private collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Professor Allen is the published author of Hats and HatNots, Black Bodies, and Double Up, all books of photographs published in collaboration with the QCC Art Gallery. His one-man show at the Leica Gallery in Manhattan, scheduled to open in the fall of 2012, will coincide with the publishing

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