Carnegie Museum: Teenie Harris

Contact: Ellen James, +1 412.688.8690, jamese@carnegiemuseums.org

Art Created by an Influential Photographer of 20th Century Urban Black America now Helps Involve that Community with the Arts

For nearly 40 years, Charles “Teenie” Harris, one of the finest chroniclers of African American life, worked for The New Pittsburgh Courier, one of the country’s most influential African American newspapers. Because it was a time when media was as segregated as society itself, Harris was able to both capture ordinary life, and gain extraordinary access to presidents, celebrities, and civil rights leaders interacting in settings rarely seen by the majority. His archives now reside at Carnegie Museum of Art. A new exhibition of his work is accompanied by present-day photos taken by youth now living in public housing in the neighborhoods Harris once photographed.

Teenie Harris was one of the most prolific photographers of Black America from the Great Depression through the Civil Rights Movement. He captured the everyday – men working, families praying, a boy boxing – as well as the extraordinary: Jack and Jackie Kennedy on a visit, Eleanor Roosevelt chatting with children, Lena Horne backstage with her father, Muhammad Ali playfully lifting his mother, Willie Mays showing off his bat to boys at Forbes Field. In all, Harris is known to have produced 80,000 photographs.

Today the Teenie Harris Archive resides at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where a sampling of his work is again on exhibition from July 13 to November 1, 2009. In Documenting Our Past: the Teenie Harris Archive Project, Part Three, the museum encourages the public to help identify what they see (the contents of many photographs remain uncertain) both in the gallery and on a website, where nearly 60,000 of Harris’s images can be viewed.

The exhibit also features 50 current photographs taken by at-risk youth as part of the “One Shot Teenie Harris Photo Contest,” inspired by the idea that one shot—either from a gun or a camera—can change a life—run by the Pittsburgh Housing Authority. Such involvement in the arts upholds a 115-year old wish of Andrew Carnegie for ordinary people to experience the world of art. Combined, the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History attracted 386,300 visitors last year and generated $35.5 million dollars in tourist spending.

Photos available at: cmamediaphotos.einetwork.net/  (please register with Ellen James)
CMA Logo available here: www.cmoa.org/logos
Additional Information: www.cmoa.org/teenie