Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story at the Carnegie Museum of Art
Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story at the Carnegie Museum of Art
Charles "Teenie" Harris, Girl reading comic book in newsstand, c. 1940-1945. Black-and-white negative. Heinz
Family Fund. Teenie Harris Archive © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
ETA: Online archive of Harris' photography available here: http://www.cmoa.org/teenie/intro.asp
PITTSBURGH, PA.- Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story,
the first major retrospective exhibition of the work and legacy of
African American artist Charles "Teenie" Harris, will be on view at Carnegie Museum of Art through April 7, 2012.
The groundbreaking exhibition celebrates the artist/photographer
whose work is considered one of the most complete portraits anywhere of
20th-century African American experience. Large-scale, themed
photographic projections of nearly 1,000 of Teenie Harris's greatest
images accompanied by an original jazz soundtrack generate an immersive
experience in the exhibition's opening gallery. Subsequent galleries
present a chronological display of these photographs at a conventional
scale, and give visitor access to the more than 73,000 catalogued and
digitized images in the museum's Teenie Harris Archive. The exhibition
offers an examination of Harris's working process and artistry, and
audio commentary on the man and his work by the people who knew him. In
addition, the photographs and many of these materials are accessible on
Carnegie Museum of Art's website.
Since 2001, our museum has been the repository of the Teenie Harris
Archive. This exhibition marks the culmination of a long effort to
preserve and document an extensive collection of historically and
artistically important images," says Lynn Zelevansky, The Henry J. Heinz
II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art. "We are honored to present this
retrospective of a photographer whose body of work gives so much to us.
During his 40-year career as freelance and staff photographer for
the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential black
newspapers, Teenie Harris (1908-1998) produced more than 80,000 images
of Pittsburgh's African American community. The photographs, taken from
the 1930s to the 1970s, capture a period of momentous change for black
Americans. His subjects ranged from the everyday lives of ordinary
people to visits by powerful and glamorous national figures to
Pittsburgh, the nation's industrial center. From birthday celebrations
to civil rights boycotts, the distinctive vision of Harris's photographs
folds into the larger narrative of American history, art, and culture.
Charles "Teenie" Harris, Girl reading comic book in newsstand, c. 1940-1945. Black-and-white negative. Heinz
Family Fund. Teenie Harris Archive © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
ETA: Online archive of Harris' photography available here: http://www.cmoa.org/teenie/intro.asp
PITTSBURGH, PA.- Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story,
the first major retrospective exhibition of the work and legacy of
African American artist Charles "Teenie" Harris, will be on view at Carnegie Museum of Art through April 7, 2012.
The groundbreaking exhibition celebrates the artist/photographer
whose work is considered one of the most complete portraits anywhere of
20th-century African American experience. Large-scale, themed
photographic projections of nearly 1,000 of Teenie Harris's greatest
images accompanied by an original jazz soundtrack generate an immersive
experience in the exhibition's opening gallery. Subsequent galleries
present a chronological display of these photographs at a conventional
scale, and give visitor access to the more than 73,000 catalogued and
digitized images in the museum's Teenie Harris Archive. The exhibition
offers an examination of Harris's working process and artistry, and
audio commentary on the man and his work by the people who knew him. In
addition, the photographs and many of these materials are accessible on
Carnegie Museum of Art's website.
Since 2001, our museum has been the repository of the Teenie Harris
Archive. This exhibition marks the culmination of a long effort to
preserve and document an extensive collection of historically and
artistically important images," says Lynn Zelevansky, The Henry J. Heinz
II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art. "We are honored to present this
retrospective of a photographer whose body of work gives so much to us.
During his 40-year career as freelance and staff photographer for
the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential black
newspapers, Teenie Harris (1908-1998) produced more than 80,000 images
of Pittsburgh's African American community. The photographs, taken from
the 1930s to the 1970s, capture a period of momentous change for black
Americans. His subjects ranged from the everyday lives of ordinary
people to visits by powerful and glamorous national figures to
Pittsburgh, the nation's industrial center. From birthday celebrations
to civil rights boycotts, the distinctive vision of Harris's photographs
folds into the larger narrative of American history, art, and culture.