Sheldon Art Gallery Showcases Williams' Underground Railroad Photo Exhibit

Sheldon Art Galleries showcases powerful photos of underground railroad sites by noted African-American Photographer

The Sheldon Art Galleries presents Uncovering the Path to Freedom: Photographs of Underground Railroad Sites by William Earle Williams,

February 19 - May 15, 2010 in the Gallery of Photography. Please join us for an opening reception on Friday, February 19 from 5 - 7 p.m.! Gallery Hours are

 

Tuesdays, Noon - 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, Noon - 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission. Admission is free. For more information on the exhibition visit the galleries' website at www.thesheldon.org/galleries.asp. This exhibition is made possible in part by the David S. Millstone Arts Foundation and John and Yvette Dubinsky.

Gallery Talk: Saturday, April 10 at 11 a.m., photographer William Earle Williams will give an overview of his photographic work, Gallery of Photography,

 

 

Admission is free.

William Earle Williams has been photographing Underground Railroad sites for more than 25 years. His photography career began while he was an undergraduate at Hamilton College , in Clinton , NY . In 2001, he discoverEd Hamilton 's abolitionist history, and took a special interest in Underground Railroad sites in that part of New York State . In 2003, Williams received an artist's residency at Light Work, in Syracuse , New York , which provided him with the opportunity to make an extended document of sites in Central Upstate New York. In that same year, Williams received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled him to do extensive research on additional sites around the country. Since then, Williams has visited sites in Indiana , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Maryland , Mississippi , West Virginia , Eastern Ontario in Canada and many others to continue this document of powerful yet sensitive photographs of these important sites. Informative texts about each site written by Williams accompany each image.

An educator, curator and photographer, Williams' photographic work has focused on sites of African-American history and slave culture. He is Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor of Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts and Curator of Photography at Haverford College in Pennsylvania , where he has taught since 1978. His works can be found in the Permanent Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. In addition to receiving a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2003, he has also received grants from the Ford Foundation, a Pew Fellowship in the arts and numerous others.

The not-for-profit Sheldon Art Galleries exhibits works by local, national, and International Artists in all media. Over 6,000 square feet of the galleries' spaces on the 2nd floor are permanently devoted to rotating exhibits of photography, architecture, jazz art and history, and children's art. A sculpture garden, seen from both the atrium lobby and the connecting glass bridge, features periodic rotations and installations, and the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery on the lower level features art of all media. The Sheldon actively supports the work of St. Louis artists in all mediums and features a dedicated gallery with museum-quality exhibits by St. Louis artists, past and present.

 

 

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