Career

Member of NBC-TV graphic arts staff, c. early 1970s; professional photographer, 1975--. Work has been exhibited at Kenkeleba Gallery, New York City, Tisch School of the Arts, New York City, and at other galleries, museums, and libraries. Has done charity work for inner city literacy programs and AIDS-awareness groups.

Life`s Work

Photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe has turned her personal tragedy into a meaningful dialogue for children and adults about the ravages of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Moutoussamy-Ashe, whose husband, tennis pro Arthur Ashe, died of AIDS-related causes in 1993, has published a book of photographs detailing her husband`s last year, using their daughter`s experiences as a point of view.

The resulting work, Daddy and Me: A Photo Story of Arthur Ashe and His Daughter, Camera, has been praised for its ability to demystify AIDS for children. Life magazine reporter Claudie Glenn Dowling noted that Moutoussamy-Ashe`s pictures, combined with a text of her young daughter`s words about a family facing mortality, "will touch anyone who has imagined what it is like for the child left behind."

The book Daddy and Me is Moutoussamy-Ashe`s third collection of photographs to have been published since 1982. The college- trained photojournalist managed to juggle her career as an artist, her duties as a mother, and her status as wife of a sports celebrity through almost two decades of triumph and turmoil. Moutoussamy-Ashe credits her late husband, one of the best-known tennis stars in America, with encouraging her to develop as an individual.