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Recent Acquisitions Releases Press Release Archive |
Tyler Museum of Art Opens Photography Exhibition Tyler, TX—While the small East Texas town of Jasper may long be remembered for a horrific race-related hate crime that occurred there in 1998, a far greater legacy is preserved in the works of the town’s talented African-American photographer, Alonzo Jordan. The Tyler Museum of Art will feature the late photographer’s work in a new exhibition, The Photography of Alonzo Jordan: Images of Jasper, 1943-1983, opening January 14 in the Museum’s Carmichael Gallery. In 1943, Jordan, who also worked as a barber, began taking school photos of the children who attended the segregated schools in Jasper and surrounding communities. During his studio’s operation, Jordan photographed almost every African-American graduating class and school event in Jasper and for schools in about a 75-mile radius, including Orange, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Silsbee, Kountze, Nacogdoches, St. Augustine, Crockett, Groveton, Trinity, even as far away as Kilgore. An active Prince Hall Mason, Jordan also documented black churches and Freemasonry in East Texas, as well as African-American parades and community events in Jasper. “While most of Jordan’s photographs demonstrate a factual documentary style, some reveal an understated sense of humor, evident in the way he sometimes posed his subjects for portraits—a family standing in a corn field or a child sitting on the hood of a car,” said Alan Govenar, co-founder with Kaleta Doolin of the Texas African American Photography (TAAP) Archive in Dallas, which organized the exhibition. “In addition to portraiture and the community events, Jordan photographed landscapes of the world around him, images he apparently made for himself (not to sell)—the winding road outside his studio, a truck and trailer parked on the side of the road.” Many of the photographs in the TMA exhibition depict the everyday occurrences and events of family life throughout Jordan’s 41-year career: weddings, anniversaries, homecoming dances and parades, club meetings, church events, funerals, spiritual quartets and singing groups, even an African-American baseball team known as the Simmons Baseball Club. Largely self-taught, Jordan took great care insuring his photographs showed his subjects in their best light. “In his photographs, Jordan emphasized the dignity and self-esteem of African-American day-to-day life,” Govenar said. By the end of his career, Jordan was photographing integrated schools, though Govenar described the integration documented in Jordan’s photos as somewhat limited: “a white teacher in front of a classroom of black students; two couples, one black, one white, sitting next to each other, but still separated.” The talented photographer died January 19, 1984. Jordan’s widow, Helen Armstrong Limbrick Jordan, worked as a floral designer in Jasper, but also assisted her husband in his photography business, holding lights or helping with large group photos. Throughout his career, Jordan operated both a photo studio and a barbershop simultaneously. “He had his barbershop open from four to five days a week. It was a passable living. There was a better living in the photography, if you could stick with it, as it was in barbering,” Mrs. Jordan recalled. She donated the collection of her husband’s work to the TAAP Archive to preserve his legacy and lifetime of work. Alan Govenar will present a special lecture February 19 at 2 p.m. at the Tyler Museum of Art entitled “Images of Community: African American Photographers in East Texas.” Govenar, who is also the founder and president of Documentary Arts in Dallas, organized a TMA exhibition in 1993 on the Photographs of Curtis Humphrey. Humphrey (1907–1996), a well-known African-American photographer in Tyler, also taught photography at Wiley College in Marshall and Texas College in Tyler for several years. Govenar hopes to create a permanent and more extensive exhibition of Humphrey’s work for the TAAP Archive. “We are pleased to re-focus attention on these early East Texas photographers,” said Ken Tomio, TMA curator. “We think the public will find Jordan’s photographs both nostalgic and intriguing, depicting a familiar, yet in many ways forgotten, view of his world. They are an important testimony to life in a segregated world.” The Photography of Alonzo Jordan: Images of Jasper, 1943–1983 will be on exhibit at the TMA through February 28. For more information or to make reservations for the free Govenar lecture, call 903-595-1001. Exhibition hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The Museum is closed on Mondays. |