Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Wendel A. White, Distinguished Professor of Art, Stockton University; 2021 Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
In conversation with William E. Williams, Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities; Professor of Fine Arts, Haverford College
Visual artist Wendel A. White photographs objects, documents, and books held in public collections to explore the complexities of American history, slavery, abolition, concepts of race, and Black life and culture. In this program, marking the upcoming exhibition of his work at the Peabody Museum, White will engage in a conversation with photographer William E. Williams, whose own images of architecture, landscapes, and African American historical sites, examine similar topics. Both artists will share their approaches to documenting complex and painful aspects of U.S. history. They will highlight marginalized or overlooked Black and African American stories of resilience, ingenuity, and agency and discuss reconnecting consciousness and memories to places and objects that signify the lives and experiences of Black communities.
A reception and exhibition preview will follow in the galleries of the Peabody Museum. Advance copies of the related book Wendel A. White: Manifest | Thirteen Colonies, (Radius Books/Peabody Museum Press, Summer 2024) will be available to view and preorder. Free parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Presented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture.
The exhibition Manifest: Thirteen Colonies will be open May 18, 2024–April 13, 2025.
Learn more about the exhibition and Wendel White.
About the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography
About the Speakers
Wendel A. White (b. 1956, Newark, New Jersey) is currently Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University and has taught photography at the School of Visual Arts; The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; the International Center of Photography; and the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work has received various awards and fellowships, including an honorary Doctor of Arts, Oakland University; Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography; Bunn Lectureship in Photography, Bradley University; three artist fellowships from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; and New Works Photography Fellowship from En Foco Inc. His work is represented in museum and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois; among many others.
William E. Williams is Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts and Curator of Photography at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. He has been affiliated with Haverford since 1978, after receiving his MFA in photography that year from the Yale University School of Art. He has organized over eighty exhibitions in thirty-eight years, including work by Lewis Hine, Diane Arbus, Roy De Carava, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Andy Warhol, Harold Edgerton, Lisette Model, and Man Ray. His photographs have been widely exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, George Eastman House, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The National Gallery, Smith College, and the Smithsonian. His photographs are in many public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton University Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Williams is a 1997 Pew Fellow in the Arts, and has received individual artist fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in 1986, 1997, and 2003. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for 2003–04.
