Thursday, December 1, 2016

UPDATED William Christenberry, 1936 - 2016




William Christenberry, distinguished Southern photographer and one of the nation's pioneer artists and fine art photographers, has died at the age of 80.  

Go here for his obituary from the New York Times.

Go here for the Washington Post's account. 

Go here for the report on NPR.

The Paris Review has published this memoir of Christenberry by Drew Bratcher.

Go here for a tribute by Richard King.

Go here for a tribute from the New Yorker. 

London's Guardian newspaper has published this tribute

ArtForum has posted this tribute. 


The American Scholar has published this essay by Andy Grundberg

Other notices and tributes here, from Front Page, and here, from PDNOnline, and also here, also from PDNOnline.   

Some time back, LensCulture posted an interview with Christenberry, here  

Work by Christenberry is currently on display at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in NYC, through January 21st, 2017, go here. 

There will be a major retrospective show of Christenberry's work at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD, opening on December 9th, 2016, and up through March 12th, 2017.

If you can get to Baltimore, this show is a not-to-be-missed event, since it includes a wide range of Christenberry's work both in photography and in other media as well.

The folks at the MCIA describe Christenberry's work as "Drawing on his explorations, recollections and interpretations of Hale County, Alabama, [and balancing]  the beauty, hopefulness and resilience of the deep south against its tensions, pathos and flaws.

"Moving fluidly between painting, photography, sculpture and drawing, the artist weaves a story that is simultaneously celebratory and melancholy, inviting and inhospitable."

Especially important for us today is the inclusion in this show of what the Maryland Institute calls "the charged and rarely exhibited Klan Room Tableau, a dense multimedia installation that is [Christenberry's] response to the Ku Klux Klan and human capacity for hatred and violence." 

The world of fine art photography in the American South feels deeply this grievous loss. 

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