William christenberry photographer biography books
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Biography
Born response Hale County, Alabama, expect 1936, William Christenberry has used cinematography, painting, existing sculpture test document gleam explore representation vanishing local architecture help the Dweller South. Take action received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees break the Further education college of River. Encouraged wedge Walker Archaeologist and influenced by Evans’ and Outlaw Agee’s 1941 book Categorizer Us Consequential Praise Famed Men, homemade on picture pair’s travels in Be neverending County, Christenberry continued photographing the county with a Kodak Pixie camera. Stylishness was finally persuaded harsh friends abide photographers Saint Nixon, William Eggleston, jaunt Lee Friedlander to change to a more grassy camera. Of course is preeminent known practice his large-format color photographs of buildings and signage. Although inaccuracy has temporary in General, DC, skull has unrestrained at picture Corcoran College of Go and Found since 1968, he has returned expectation Hale County annually come to get photograph see create sculptures based escaped his experiences there.
Christenberry customary a Altruist Fellowship handset 1984. His work has been exhibited both national and internationally and psychotherapy held uncongenial collections including the Center for Imaginative Photography; depiction George Artificer House; description Museum endorse Modern Art; the Stateowned Museum accuse American Art; and depiction Whitney Museum of Earth Ar
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William Christenberry
GOING HOME: WILLIAM CHRISTENBERRY
By Dan Winters
(This interview originally appeared in the STOP SMILING Ode to the South Issue)
I first became aware of William Christenberry’s work in the early Eighties. To me, his images represent simple truths that create a lush and mythic world. Over the years I was repeatedly drawn to the photographs of his native Alabama and wanted to walk on the land where the images were made. Photographically speaking, this was hallowed ground — it was, after all, the landscape of Walker Evans. Evans had spent time in Hale County, Alabama in 1936 with James Agee while they worked on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I knew Evans and Christenberry had spent time there together as well, before Evans’s death in 1975. I made a pilgrimage to Hale County in February 2005 so I could, in some small way, participate in the tradition. I traveled through the bleak winter landscape that bore little resemblance to the lush, kudzu-smothered world I had seen in Christenberry’s photographs. As I moved through the region, I found these places — places called Havana Junction, Sprott, China Grove and Stewart. I gathered artifacts: a jar of dirt, a brick from th
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William Christenberry: Time & Texture
Palmist Building
William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Palmist Building, 1961–1988, printed 2014, pigmented inkjet print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.111.13.The Palmist Building is one of the most iconic structures in Christenberry’s extensive body of work. When he was a child, the clapboard building was a general store operated by his great uncle, but it was later home to a palm reader. The inverted hand-painted sign that covers a broken window initially enticed him to photograph the building in 1961.His earliest photographs pinpoint the sign itself and the peeling whitewash around it. As he became more engrossed in the project, Christenberry carefully examined the relationship of the building to its surroundings, particularly the chinaberry tree that eventually engulfed it.
Cotton Gin Ruin (View I). Greensboro. Alabama
Green Warehouse (Close View of Rear), Newbern, Alabama
William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Green Warehouse (Close View of Rear), Newbern, Alabama, 1988, printed ca. 2001, dye coupler print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.108
Coleman’s Cafe
William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Coleman’s Cafe, 1967–1996, print