Photograph by Jim Alexander

A panel discussion by four eminent African-American photographers will be held from 9 a.m. to noon on Friday, March 22 at the University of Delaware. Photographers Jim Alexander, Ming Smith Murray, Frank Stewart and (William) Onikwa Bill Wallace, all of whom currently have photographs on display at UD, will discuss their craft in 007 Willard Hall Education Building.

The event is free and open to the public.

In the afternoon the group will be available to critique works by student photographers at UD.

Alexander, Murray, Stewart and Wallace have their works included in the exhibition “Original Acts: Photographs of African-American Performers in the Paul R. Jones Collection,” on display through March 28 in the University Gallery, located in Old College adjacent to Recitation Hall.

Alexander has photographed leading jazz musicians for the past 30 years and reached a milestone with the publication of the book “Duke and Other Legends” in 1971. The photo essay frames the life and career of the famous band leader with that of other internationally known stars like Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. Based in Atlanta for the past 20 years, Alexander has more recently turned his attention to blues performers in Mississippi but his approach remains the same—placing himself and his camera in the very center of a performance.

Murray’s work often avoids the literalness of straight photography and depicts people and objects in personal ways—using deep gray tones, bright paint and surface treatments that render her images theatrical and atmospheric. Photographs of her husband, saxophonist David Murray, tend to present him in lush, leafy environments that allude to a certain rootedness. At other times, she portrays him with fellow World Sax Quartet musicians in photos that are autobiographical in passive ways. Her 1992 book, “A Ming Breakfast: Grits and Scrambled Eggs” is an evocative diary layered with double entendres, personal signs and secret messages.

Stewart, the artist behind the photo of a jazz group taking a bow, the centerpiece of the UD exhibition, is a New York based filmmaker and photographer. Recently, he completed a second book project with Wynton Marsalis, the first being “Sweet Swing on the Road,” published in 1994. His image of Miles Davis being interviewed backstage in the green room, also in the UD show, captures the height of interaction between the performer and the eager press corps. He cleverly alludes to the complexity and genius of his subject by capturing Davis in a calm, muse-like profile.

Wallace, a Chicago-based photographer, seems to be literally in the face of subjects like Miles Davis, Axel McQuerry, Art Blakey, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra as he composes the perfect image. His close-ups are so incredible one gets the full sense of the energy, skill and intense concentration required of the musicians as well as Wallace himself.

For more information on the panel event, call (302) 831-4075. For more information on the exhibition, call (302) 831-8242.

March 19, 2002