Full Color Depression

Keep All You Wish: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum

Beyond the Front Porch 2012

Upcoming Exhibitions





Full Color Depression
First Kodachromes from America's Heartland
Kreps Gallery
January 23–July 23, 2012

A reception will be held Thursday, April 19, from 6-9 p.m., with a talk by Bruce Jackson at 7 p.m., followed by a book signing for In This Timeless Time by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian

There will be a public auction of the photographs on June 21.





The photographs taken by the Library of Congress’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) team—composed of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Russell Lee, and others, under the leadership of Roy Emerson Stryker—include some of the most recognizable images of rural and small-town America during the Great Depression. Beginning in 1935, the team captured at least 175,000 black-and-white images of cities, towns, and the countryside throughout America’s heartland. Some of the photographers also captured lesser-known color images using a film called Kodachrome. No one knows exactly how many frames they shot for the FSA in color, but only 1,615 survive. Until recently, most of these images had not been seen since they were initially processed by Kodak’s lab in Rochester well over half a century ago.

Kodachrome, the most stable fine-grain color film ever made, was introduced as 16mm movie film in 1935. During the following three years, it became available in canisters for 35mm cameras and in sheets for medium- and large-format cameras. By late 1939, the processing was as good as the film, and some of Stryker’s FSA photographers began experimenting with it. They continued their work after the FSA project was absorbed by the Office of War Information (OWI) in 1942, through its dissolution in 1944. Unlike black-and-white film, which could easily be developed while on the road, Kodachrome required a more complex process and was sent to Kodak to be developed. As a result, the photographers often did not see their final images. They were rediscovered in 1978 in the Library of Congress Archives by Sally Stein, who was researching photography from the 1930s for her dissertation. Today, all of the project’s surviving color images are available as high-resolution scans from the Library of Congress.

For this exhibition, Bruce Jackson, a photographer himself, has selected, printed, and, in some instances, restored a representative group of images; some of the prints required more than a thousand separate corrections. This selection of images ranges from the first tentative explorations of Marion Post Wolcott—who used the film in the same way she used black-and-white film—to the more complex color work of Russell Lee and Jack Delano—who were beginning to understand that color photography was different than monochrome—and the hyped advertising-style propaganda images of Arthur T. Palmer from the early years of World War II. Color photography would not find a firm base in the art world until an exhibition of works by William Eggleston was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, but as the images in this exhibition demonstrate, the path was marked decades before by Stryker’s FSA team. Their assignment was to document what America looked like during and at the end of the Great Depression; in the process, they discovered new ways the camera lens could see and represent the world.

This exhibition is organized by Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of English and James Agee Professor of American Culture at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The original color transparencies are in the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection at the Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsac/.

Keep All You Wish: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum
Lyndhurst Gallery
April 30–October 20, 2012



A new photography exhibit at the Center for Documentary Studies, Keep All You Wish: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, features a selection of portraits from the Hugh Mangum Collection, housed at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, Mangum began establishing studios and working as an itinerant photographer in the early 1890s, traveling by rail through North Carolina and the Virginias. Rare for his time, Mangum attracted and cultivated a clientele that drew heavily from both the African American and white communities, especially in his hometown. In Mangum’s lifetime he likely exposed thousands of glass plate negatives, but most of those were destroyed through benign neglect after Mangum’s death or are now lost, as are any records of the names and dates associated with the images.

In 1922, six weeks before his death at age forty-four, Mangum wrote a letter to his sister Lula signed, “Give my love to all and keep all you wish, Your Brother Hugh.” Read as an expression of his pictures, the phrase “keep all you wish” suggests Mangum’s generosity in creating an atmosphere—respectful and often playful—in which the hundreds of men, women, and children who posed for him were able to reveal themselves. A century later, Mangum’s portraits allow us to gaze into the faces of early-twentieth-century Durham and the American South.

—Sarah Stacke, curator (Duke University ’12, M.A. in Liberal Studies, concentrations in African and African American Studies and Documentary Studies)

Beyond the Front Porch 2012
Porch and University Galleries
May 7–September 8, 2012

Nineteen graduating seniors who have completed the Certificate in Documentary Studies at Duke University are showcasing their final projects in Beyond the Front Porch 2012, an exhibit which opened at the Center for Documentary Studies on May 7. At an an open house celebration at CDS on April 29, the students presented their projects and received their certificates.

The undergraduate certificate program draws students from across the arts and sciences who want to combine documentary fieldwork with a topic they care most about. Working in one or more documentary mediums—photography, film, writing, and/or audio—each of the certificate students completes a final documentary project during their last semester.

For more information and images, visit the students’ blog: beyondthefrontporch2012.wordpress.com


2012 Certificate in Documentary Studies Graduates

Adelyn Wyngaarden
Aziza-Mistral Sullivan
Caitlin Johnson
Emma Miller
Cassidy Fleck
Eddie Wu
Grace Leeper
Jared Ciervo
Josh Evans
Jean Rheem
Kimberley Goffe
Josh Stillman
Lauren Kennedy
Marquise Eloi
Michael Naclerio
Natasha Williams
Shining Li
Nathan Glencer
Stephanie Amador

Coney Island 40 Years
Photographs by Harvey Stein
Kreps Gallery
August 6–October 27, 2012






CDS Gallery Hours
Monday–Thursday: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday: closed






Additional support for CDS Exhibitions is provided by the Office of the Provost at Duke University.






banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


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