In Black and White

When it comes to artful photography what you see is not always the whole truth, according to University of Maryland art professor Rene Ater. For such pictures also tell stories and deliver powerful messages beyond just what you see on the surface

Ater appeared at the Smithsonian American Art Museum today to deliver a lecture designed to kick off the museum's new exhibit African-American Art: The Harlem Renaissance, The Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, which features works from 43 black artists.

Entitled Telling Stories, Sending Messages: Insight and Inspiration for African-American Photography in the mid-20th Century, Ater's remarks focused on 3 black and white pictures included in the exhibit. They were:

• "Make a Wish (Bronx Slave Market, 170th Street, New York" (1938) by Robert McNeil
• "Harlem - Gang Warfare" (1948) by Gordon Parks
• "Graduation" (1949) by Roy DeCarava

 In "Make a Wish," McNeil captures 2 black women and 1 black man waiting on a bright, cold morning for someone to choose them for domestic day work. Ater said the picture was part of a series condemning appalling labor conditions in depression era New York City where unemployment for blacks was 50 percent and a day-laborer might make 15 cents an hour.

"You have the dignity of the well-dressed women against the indignity of their working conditions," Ater said. "And then there is irony of the movie poster behind them. What are they wishing for?"

 In 1948, Gordon Parks shot a revealing feature spread in Life magazine about the life and living conditions of Red Jackson (picture above) a young Harlem gang member.

In "Harlem - Gang Warfare", Parks graphically captured Jackson and 5 other African-American young men engaged in a violent night-time gang rumble. Ater said Parks undertook his 4-week chronicle into Jackson's world to show "the limited choices for young people in a world of poverty and discrimination. He wanted it to serve as a window into the toughness of that life."

 In the 1940s, Roy DeCarava shot a series of symbolic pictures "to show the strength, the wisdom, the dignity of the Negro people." In "Graduation," DeCarava captures a young teenager in her gown heading down the debris-strewn streets of Harlem past an empty lot strewed with trash. "There are many questions here," Ater said. "Is this a picture of potential or a condemnation of urban blight? It is a powerful picture."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
If you would like to see the exhibit for yourself, you do have quite a bit of time. It is scheduled to run until Sept. 3