Camille Billops, a multifaceted artist, began her creative journey as a sculptor and painter, before transitioning to filmmaking, and eventually accumulating a vast collection of books, documents, and photographs celebrating black culture.
Born in 1933 in Los Angeles, Billops pursued her passion for art at the University of Southern California, where she initially studied. Later, she shifted her focus to childhood education, earning her degree in 1960 from California State University.
Two years after giving birth to her daughter, Christa, Billops made the controversial decision to put her up for adoption, a choice that would later become the subject of a documentary about their reunion.
In the 1970s, alongside her future husband, James V. Hatch, a white scholar of black theater, Billops oversaw a 4,000-square-foot artistic loft in New York City's Soho neighborhood. This hub served as a collaborative space for artists, a salon for musicians and performers, and a sanctuary for creative expression.
Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Billops and Hatch were able to record over 1,200 oral histories with black artists. This extensive collection, along with the other materials they gathered, is now housed at Emory University.
Camille Billops passed away on June 1st, 2019, in Manhattan, leaving behind a lasting legacy as a pioneering artist, educator, and cultural preservationist.
