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Current Exhibitions Future Exhibitions Back to Exhibitions )
Alonzo Jordan. Parade, Jasper, Texas, 1958. Gelatin silver print,
7.5 x 9.75 inches. Collection of the Texas African American Photography Archive, Dallas)
Alonzo Jordan. Road in Front of the Jordan Studio, Jasper, Texas, 1953. Gelatin silver print, 7 5/8 x 9 1/2 inches.
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Alonzo Jordan. Portrait of a Bride, Jasper, Texas (detail), 1953. Gelatin silver print, 7 5Ú8 x 9 1Ú2 inches.
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Alonzo Jordan. Catching the Wedding Bouquet, Jasper, Texas, ca. 1955. Gelatin silver print, 7 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches.
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Alonzo Jordan. People in Corn Field, Jasper, Texas, 1953. Gelatin silver print, 7 5/8 x 9 1/2 inches.
All images collection of the Texas African American Photography Archive, Dallas.
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The Photography of Alonzo Jordan: Images of Jasper 1943–1983 January 14–Fabruary 28, 2006 
Alonzo Jordan (1903–1983) was a community photographer and barber whose work was based in Jasper, but extended into the neighboring communities. He attended Jasper Negro School and established a barbershop in 1929 in town. He opened a studio in his house and started working as a photographer after acquiring a 'professional (4x5 format) camera' in 1943. To improve his technical skills, Jordan enrolled in a correspondence course and studied books, such as How to Pose the Model by William Mortensen and George Dunham (Cameracraft Publishing, 1956).
Jordan's photography was commercially oriented and outwardly took a documentary style. Yet in many instances he succeeded in expressing a highly personalized vision tinged with humor and, above all, love of life, which can only come from a man capable of finding excitement and happiness in the routine of daily life. He photographed almost every graduating class and school event at local Jasper schools and for schools in about a 75-mile radius, including Orange, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Silsbee, Kountze, Nacogdoches, St. Augustine, Kilgore, Crockett, Trinity, and Groveton, Texas. An active Prince Hall Mason, he also documented black churches and Freemasonry in East Texas for many years, as well as parades and community events in Jasper. Moments of tranquility were also prized by Jordan and expressed in the exquisite landscapes taken from the immediate scenes around him.
Jordan's photographs appear to depict for us in the present a nostalgic world of black Jasper, parallel to all the seemingly self-contained communities of postwar America. There are no direct representations of segregation or social protest, though the town's name is regrettably etched in our consciousness for the incident that took place after Jordan passed away. In 1998, the nation was horrified by a race-related hate crime that occurred there. The almost tranquil images of African American life become reinterpreted in the history of segregation that is fraught with racial tensions and struggles. Yet Jordan's photographs still retain for many of us the idyllic images of a friendly small East Texas town.
The Photography of Alonzo Jordan: Images of Jasper, 1943–1983 is organized by the Texas African American Photography Archive in Dallas and curated by Alan Govenar, Ph.D.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Tyler Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and East Texas Chapter, The Links, Inc.
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