A Compassionate Eye: Photography by William Anderson
On Display: 7 February – 30 April 2010 // Opening Reception: Sunday, February 7 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Charles W. Capps, Jr. Archives & Museum Building, main gallery
For the past four decades, driven by nostalgia and humanitarian concerns, Atlanta photographer William Anderson has documented life among African Americans in the Southeast. His subjects are sharecroppers, rural families, worshippers in ecstatic religious ceremonies and others of humble origin who remind of his childhood in Selma, Alabama. Whether telling a story, attempting to reveal a hidden truth, or celebrating the beauty of human life, Anderson’s aesthetic sensibility and iconographical themes combine to make a contextualized tapestry of black life. With an intensely, compassionate eye, his images reveal the history of the African American struggle for self-determination.
Widely exhibited, Anderson’s black-and white photographs have been acquired by numerous prestigious museums, including the National Gallery of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England, the High Museum of Art, Wadsworth Antheneum Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. He recently retired as an associate professor at Morehouse College and is a sculptor, painters, printmaker, and musician as well as a photographer.
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Nature of the Delta: Photography of Patty Smith
On Display: 1 April – 31 May 2010
Charles W. Capps, Jr. Archives & Museum Building, main gallery
Photo courtesy of the Tunica Times
Patty Smith, a native of Helena, Arkansas, brings her photography collection to the Capps Archives this spring. Smith, a retired educator and self-taught photographer, offers up her collection of 50 photos, which showcase the majesty of Delta wildlife. Smith began photography as a hobby after being forced into retirement due to an illness, and is now receiving recognition for her artwork. Her work was featured in the 2009 Mississippi Outdoors calendar published by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
