American Southern and Southeast Photography

American Southern and Southeast Photography

Online information about American photography from sources other than Resource Library

(above: Ginny Sherman, Kentucky Bluegrass Country, 2023, photograph)

A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 is a 2023 exhibit at the High Museum of Art which says: "The South has occupied an uneasy place in the history of photography as both an example of regional exceptionalism and as the crucible from which American identity has been forged. As the first major survey of Southern photography in twenty-five years, this exhibition examines that complicated history and reveals the South's critical impact on the evolution of the medium, posing timely questions about American culture and character." Accessed 10/23

The Colorful South: William Christenberry, Birney Imes, William Greiner, William Ferris and Alec Soth is a 2017 exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art which says: "The Colourful South explores the role color photography has played in the history of Southern photography and beyond." Accessed 8/17

Debbie Fleming Caffery: In Light of Everything is a 2023 exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art which says: "Including nearly 100 dramatic black-and-white photographs installed in three distinct spaces of the museum, In Light of Everything is the first career retrospective for the important Louisiana-born photographer Debbie Fleming Caffery. The exhibition presents examples from her most important series made in the American South, Mexico, and France, from the 1970s to the present." Also see the website of the artist. Accessed 2/24

Gary Monroe: Photographs is a 2018 exhibit at the Southeast Museum of Photography which says: Gary Monroe: Photographs provides a glimpse into a number of communities that add to the character of this place and this mentality that we call Florida. From the Old World Jews who populated South Beach Miami, to Haitian resettlement camps, to the tourists visiting Disney World, and the very landscapes that these cities and communities are built upon. Monroe has spent his life capturing little moments that reflect bigger ideas." Accessed 1/20

It Was There All Along: Artists' Books and Tintypes by Frank Hamrick is a 2019 exhibit at the Morris Museum of Art which says: "His handmade books have been the subject of a feature on NPR, and Oxford American magazine cited him as one of its one hundred New Superstars of Southern Art in 2012." Also see 9/23/19 article in Lenscratch and artist's website Accessed 12/19

The Levee: A Photographer in the American South is a 2019 exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum which says: The landscapes and portraits of The Levee trace Hura's travel along the Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio to the far reaches of the delta in Louisiana. (Sohrab) Hura, who lives and works primarily in India, made the pictures on a road trip he took in 2016 while participating in a loosely collaborative documentary project called Postcards from America. Echoing touchstones ranging from Farm Security Administration photography to Robert Frank's The Americans to Alec Soth's Sleeping by the Mississippi, Postcards fostered a reexamination of photographic perspective as well as producing rich documentary reflections on contemporary American life." Accessed 8/20

Our Living Past is a 2017 exhibit at the Alexandria Museum of Art which says: "The Music Maker Relief Foundation supports musicians who preserve the musical traditions of the South. Tim Duffy, its founder, has spent 35 years photographing the artists who work with the foundation. This exhibition features platinum palladium prints of many of these southern musicians in their own environment." Also see article from Alexandria/Pineville Convention and Visitor's Bureau. Accessed 4/17

Our Living Past: A Platinum Portrait of Music Maker is a 2017 exhibit at the Huntsville Museum of Art which says: "Our Living Past celebrates the distinctive sounds of Southern roots music through 25 iconic images of living blues, gospel, soul and bluegrass musicians. (Tim) Duffy's images of artists like Freeman Vines, Taj Mahal, Ironing Board Sam, Lena Mae Perry, John Dee Holeman and Huntsville's own Ardie Dean, capture a sense of timelessness that is appropriate to the subjects. The images are made with the distinctive wet-plate collodion process -- an early photographic method that includes tintypes. They are printed using the platinum/palladium process, which provides the greatest tonal range of any photographic printing method using chemical development." To read more after exhibit closes, go to "Past Exhibitions" section of museum website. Also see Music Maker Relief Foundation. Accessed 5/17

People Get Ready: Southern Lens is a 2018 exhibit at the Nasher Museum of Art which says: "The images in Southern Lens coalesced around William Eggleston's untitled photograph from his series The Democratic Forest. Eggleston is known for his evocative images of the American South and for photographing "democratically," meaning any and all subjects are equally important and worthy of capturing." Accessed 1/20

The Photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard is a 2022 exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art which says: "Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a visionary photographer known for his dreamlike black & white photographs of family members in masks, elegant portraits of bohemian friends and radical experiments in abstraction. Meatyard's unique visual language was the product of a naturally curious mind stimulated by a love of literature and the spoken word. His shadowy photographs -- often featuring dark dilapidated locales populated by enigmatic characters -- have drawn comparisons to Southern Gothic literature. Accessed 1/23

Reckonings and Reconstructions: Southern Photography from The Do Good Fund is a 2022 exhibit at the Georgia Museum of Art which says: "This exhibition is the first large-scale survey of the Do Good Fund's remarkable and sweeping collection of photography made in the South from the 1950s to the present. Since its founding in 2012, the Do Good Fund has built a museum-quality collection of photography that charts a visual narrative of the ever-changing American South. The collection includes images by more than 25 Guggenheim Fellows, five Magnum Photographers and two Henri Cartier-Bresson Award winners as well as images by lesser-known or emerging photographers from the region. In part a survey of the art and artists within Do Good's holdings, the exhibition is also and more crucially a scholarly investigation of southern photography since World War II." Also see the The Do Good Fund website. Accessed 1/23

Reckonings and Reconstructions: Southern Photography from the Do Good Fund is a 2023 exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art which says: "Photographs by seventy-three artists, including Gordon Parks, Sheila Pree Bright, Mark Steinmetz, Michael Stipe, and William Christenberry showcase both established and emerging names in photography. Reckonings and Reconstructions navigates the interface between nature and culture in the South. Themes of land, labor, law and protest, food, ritual, and kinship draw from historical legacies where despair and hope, terror and beauty, pain and joy, and indignity and dignity commingle." Accessed 1/24

Revisiting the South: Richard Misrach's Cancer Alley, an exhibit held March 27 - June 16, 2013 at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. Includes press release. Accessed August, 2015.

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings is a 2018 exhibit at the National Gallery of Art which says: " A native of Lexington, Virginia, Mann has long written about what it means to live in the South and be identified as a southerner." Extensive online presentation. Also see news release https://www.nga.gov/press/exh/4870.html with wall text, checklist, videos. Accessed 5/18

Scarlett Passions, Bellocq's Storyville is a 2016 exhibit from R. W. Norton Art Gallery, which says: "Thanks to photographer Lee Friedlander, who discovered Bellocq's work in the 1960's, we have these transcendent images with which to remember the humanity of the often otherwise anonymous "soiled doves" of the fabled Storyville." On 10/15/16 Heliopolis posted "Scarlett Passions at Norton Art Gallery: Prostitution, Tasteful Nudes, and Pending Affairs" by Valerie DeLattte. Accessed 11/16

Southern Interiors: Photographs from The Do Good Fund is a 2019 exhibit at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University which says: "In "Southern Interiors", contemporary photographers portray public and private spaces from Mississippi to Virginia that tell stories -- both personal and shared -- literally framed by walls, floors and windows." Also see A Symposium on Photographs from The Do Good Fund Accessed 3/20

Southern Rites is a 2019 exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art which says: "In 2002, Gillian Laub was sent on a magazine assignment to Mount Vernon, Georgia, to document the lives of teenagers in the American South." Also see Laub's website which includes 23 images from the exhibit. Accessed 5/19

The Spirit of the Place: Photographs by Jack Leigh is a 2017 exhibit at the High Museum of Art which says: " Leigh was among a generation of Southern photographers who came of age in the 1970s, including William Christenberry and William Eggleston, whose work focused on the subtle beauty found in ordinary and out-of-the-way areas of the American South." Accessed 4/17

Southbound: Photographs of and about The New South features more than 200 images by 56 photographers and representing the largest exhibition of photographs of the American South in the twenty-first century. The project is presented by The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston. The project website contains several essays, videos and audio tracks, and more. Accessed 12/19

Strange Light: The Photography of Clarence John Laughlin is a 2019 exhibit at the High Museum of Art which says: "Known primarily for his atmospheric depictions of decaying antebellum architecture that proliferated his hometown of New Orleans, Laughlin approached photography with a romantic, experimental eye that diverged heavily from his peers who championed realism and social documentary." Accessed 10/19

A Summer's Prayer is a 2022 exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art which says: "When the inexpensive and portable Kodak camera became widely available to the consumer public in the early 20th century, photography became an egalitarian hobby practiced by the masses. Family photographs made around the house (and especially on vacation) became all the rage. Everyone with a camera could then make their own personal souvenirs in the form of a photographic print. The intersection of the car and camera spawned the travelogue or road trip genre, an aesthetic sensibility that became one of the most important forms of art and documentary photographic expressions of the 20th century." Accessed 9/22

William Eggleston: Troubled Waters is a 2017 exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art which says: "This series portrays rural and roadside life in and around the Mississippi Delta, Memphis and points between." Accessed 8/17

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