Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story.

 
From Duke Ellington's ivories to Satchmo's riffs: The black and white images captured by Charles 'Teenie' Harris that re-tell the musical history of black America in the 20th Century
By Jennifer Madison

He was known as 'One Shot Harris'. Charles 'Teenie' Harris earned the nickname because he often captured his most moving images in his first take.  The late photographer's archive of nearly 80,000 is said to be the most expansive record of African American urban culture known today.

Now, fourteen years after his death, Mr Harris' work is being lauded in a retrospective exhibit, featuring rarely-seen images of Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, Louis Armstrong and other enduring names.  Curators at the Carnegie Museum of Art narrowed his collection to 987 of the 'most beautiful, appealing, and historically significant images' taken at the height of Mr Harris' career. 

After ten years of research into the archive, Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story, was put on display.  Photos of baseball star Jackie Robinson, and leaders such as John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr are featured among the most well-known names.  Duke Ellington, pictured signing autographs through a crowd, Lena Horne dancing with William 'Woogie' Harris, Josephine Baker accepting a Hill City membership card, big bands, dancing girls and carnivals feature in the expansive collection.  The first gallery features 'immersive life-size projections combined with a newly commissioned jazz soundtrack', according to the museum.  In the next hangs a chronology of Mr Harris' selected 987 photographs - and first-person narratives, including those from Harris' family, subjects and colleagues to guide viewers through the tour.  The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to an in-depth evaluation of Harris as an artist.

Born in 1908 in Pittsburgh, Mr Harris began his career as a semi-professional athlete, but after buying his first camera found his niche, and he turned to photography in the 1930s.  Initially, he specialised in glamour portraits, and eventually opened his own photography studio.  He turned to news years later, and began freelancing in 1941 for the Pittsburgh Courier - the leading African American newspaper at the time.  He became a widely-respected photojournalist before he retired in 1975, capturing on camera a colourful chronicle of the black urban community during the Jim Crow and civil rights eras now on display.

Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story will run through April 7, 2012.  A reduced-scale version will go on national tour this mont

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sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099132/Teenie-Harris-Photographer-An-American-Story.html