Black C'Ville Early 1900s: Here Comes the @HolsingerPhotos Exhibit!
HOLSINGER PHOTO EXHIBIT AT UVA SEPTEMBER 22 📸 Portraits of Dignity, Style and Racial Uplift. In the early 1900s, photographer Rufus Holsinger (1866-1930) owned a portrait studio in Charlottesville.
Over 10,000 images of Holsinger’s work are part of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. Of the more than 10,000 portraits, Holsinger took at least 611 known portraits of African-Americans in Charlottesville and central Virginia. In doing so, Holsinger captured the history, style and dignity of a community often ignored and rarely the subject of formal still portraiture in the early 1900s.
📸 You can review the Holsinger collection here.
But now, University of Virginia associate history professor John Mason, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and many others have researched Holsinger’s images. They will be on public display from Sept. 22, 2022 until June 24, 2023.
The twitter account @HolsingerPhotos is providing regular updates on the Holsinger upcoming exhibit.
The Holsinger Portrait Project’s joint partnership has meant that there are several researchers and historians that have pushed the project forward.
The photos were taken at a difficult time for Black Americans in the South but the project is aimed at demonstrating individual determination and strength that only the photographic still image can convey.
Though a significant number of the subjects are unidentified, the images are a window into Black Charlottesville and Central Virginia. Incredibly, there are 10,000 images in total at UVA given that Holsinger’s studio burned down in 1912. Many images were lost in the fire though the prints are likely in family albums and private collections.
“Attention teachers in Central Virginia schools -- especially Albemarle & Charlottesville! We'd love to give your students a tour of our exhibition. It opens on September 22nd at @RareUVA & runs until June 2023. It will transform how they see our history, literally & figuratively,” a note from the @HolsingerPhotos twitter account read on Aug. 17.
“Stewart Fuller, Jr., married for the first time in 1952. His bride was Daisy Marie Davis, a housemaid from Buckingham County, Virginia. The couple separated in 1955 and divorced about a decade later. Stewart was still working as a waiter when he married Mary Carey Turner in 1966,” another social media message read. regarding Fuller, who was photographed by Holsinger as a baby.
Holsinger’s subjects and artistry are striking. September 22nd can’t arrive soon enough.
📸 Send tips, questions and submissions to: BlackVirginiaNews@gmail.com
Wonderful portraits
Rufus Holsinger was a racist who signed Charlottesville’s Residential Segregation Ordinance into law.