Claire Oliver Gallery opens a new exhibition by photographer Jeffrey Henson Scales
Jeffrey Henson Scales, Buy Black, House's Barber Shop, 1986-1992, gelatin silver print, 18 x 18 inches | 45.72 x 45.72 cm.
NEW YORK, NY.—
Claire Oliver Gallery announces Jeffrey Henson Scales: House’s Barber Shop, a solo exhibition by the acclaimed photographer whose poetic and deeply humanistic images have shaped the visual language of Black life in America for over four decades. The exhibition centers on Scales’ powerful photographic series documenting House’s Barber Shop, a cultural cornerstone on Harlem’s Seventh Avenue that operated for over 55 years. House’s Barber Shop will be on view July 18 - September 20, 2025.
This body of work was published in House (SPQR Editions), the 2016 monograph that reintroduced audiences to Scales’ intimate portraits of a now-vanished space, part sociological archive, part personal memoir. Shot between 1986 and 1992 with a Hasselblad 500C/M, the series captures more than a barbershop; it offers a reflective meditation on Black masculinity, intergenerational rituals, community storytelling, and Harlem's shifting cultural landscape at the height of the crack epidemic.
“One day, while passing by, I was invited into the shop to photograph it by its proprietor, David House. At the time he thought he might be losing his lease, and just wanted the shop to be documented. His invitation at the time was like a welcoming into the community that my family had so recently moved. It is something I will never forget, nor diminish its significance. This was the beginning of a five-year journey within the walls of this narrow place imbued with so much history” - Jeffrey Henson Scales
Jeffrey Henson Scales, Mr. House, House's Barber Shopm 1986-1992, gelatin silver print, 18 x 18 inches | 45.72 x 45.72 cm.
Through fluorescent light and mirrored interiors, Scales renders the shop’s tactile intimacy: the buzz of clippers, the glint of straight razors, the quiet elegance of a space where time seemed to fold into ritual. The exhibition offers viewers a rare opportunity to step back into 1980s Harlem and reflect on the political and poetic legacy of one of its vital communal spaces. Now, with gentrification threatening Harlem’s cultural bedrock, House’s Barber Shop stands as a document of what was, and a reminder of what can still be preserved.
Jeffrey Henson Scales is a Harlem-based photographer, photo editor at The New York Times, and co-founder of the Harlem-based HSP Archive. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The International Center of Photography, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. His photographs, spanning civil rights movements, Black portraiture, music, and street photography, have shaped public understanding of Black American life from the 1960s to the present.
Claire Oliver Gallery is located in Central Harlem in a four-story brownstone. For nearly 25 years, Claire Oliver Gallery has showcased and celebrated artwork, with a focus on work by women and people of color, which transcends and challenges the traditional art historical canon. Our forward-thinking program and exclusive commitment to the primary market allows for an intensive focus that has nurtured and grown the careers of our artists. Many of the gallery’s artists have been included in The Venice Biennale, The Whitney Biennial, and biennales in Sydney, Pittsburgh, and Lyon and have exhibited works in major international museums including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Georges Pompidou, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art amongst others. Claire Oliver Gallery artists are included in the permanent collections of many important museums worldwide including The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Tate Britain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The State Hermitage Museum, MoMA, and the Museum of Arts and Design amongst many others. Claire Oliver Gallery held the first American exhibition for the Russian collaborative AES+F, whose work went on to twice represent Russia in the Russian pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Gallery artists have received prestigious fellowships including Fulbright, Guggenheim, USArtist, and National Endowment for the Arts.
