February 10 – April 27, 2008 Memphis Blues: Photographs by Ernest C. Withers Payne Hurd Gallery Ernest C. Withers (b. 1922), a practicing photographer for over 60 years, lived and worked in Memphis, Tennessee. He captured in black and white key moments in the Civil Rights movement, the life and death of the Negro Baseball League, and the black social life of the city. He also documented the vibrant Beale Street music scene that grew out of the city’s black culture and influenced a generation of white musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, who helped to bring the Memphis sound to the attention of the nation. This exhibition features Withers’ photographs from this classic period in American music. The works provide an insider’s view of the music scene in the clubs on Beale Street at the point when Americans, white and black, were beginning to recognize Memphis as a musical Mecca. On Saturday nights Withers would photograph members of the audiences at the clubs for a dollar fifty a shot. He also photographed hundreds of the great musical performers who performed on the stages of Memphis’s famous Beale Street, many of whom he knew well. B. B. King, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and a host of others were all captured in his camera’s eye. His photographs capture the spirit and talent as well as the regional flavor of an important place in time. Withers’ powerful images validate the message he had printed on his business card: “Pictures tell the story.” Jacqueline M. Atkins, the Kate Fowler Merle-Smith Curator of Textiles, is site curator for the exhibition. RELATED PROGRAMS & EVENTS TUESDAYS 3/18-4/8 ART APPRECIATION COURSE Register: 610-432-4333, ext. 10 6:30-8 PM 4/2 GALLERY TALK 12 PM		Ernest C. Withers, American b. 1922 Ike and Tina Turner at the Club Paradise, from The Memphis Blues Again Portfolio, 1962 Gelatin silver print The gift of John and Fannie Saeger, 2005 Ernest C. Withers, American b. 1922 James Brown at the Mid-South Coliseum, from The Memphis Blues Again Portfolio, about 1965 Gelatin silver print The gift of John and Fannie Saeger, 2005
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