Rashaun Rucker

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Rashaun Rucker attended North Carolina Central University and Marygrove College. He makes photographs, prints and drawings and has won more than 40 national and state awards for his work.

In 2008, Rucker became the first African American to be named Michigan Press Photographer of the Year. The same year, he won a Natural Emmy Award for Documentary Photography on the pitbull culture in Detroit. Rucker has held numerous fellowships and residencies, including the Maynard Fellowship at Harvard in 2009; a Hearst Visiting Professional in the journalism department at the University of North Caroline-Chapel Hill in 2013; an Artist Residency at the Red Bull House of Art in 2014; Kresge Arts Fellowship in 2019; a residency at the International Studios and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York in 2021; and a Mellon Fellowship at the University of Michigan Institute of Humanities in 2021. 

Rucker was honored as a Modern Man by Black Enterprise Magazine in 2016 and created the original artwork for the critically acclaimed Detroit Free Press documentary 12 and Clairmount. His work was recently featured in HBO’s celebrated series Random Acts of Flyness and Native Son. In 2019, Rucker was awarded the Red Bull Arts Detroit Micro Grant followed by A Sustainable Arts Foundation Award in 2020 and a Visual Arts Grant by the Harpo Foundation in 2021.

Currently, Rucker is pursuing an MFA in print media at Cranbrook Academy of Art. His diverse work is represented in numerous public and private collections. 

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