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| Vol. 17, No. 18 | Feb. 5, 1998 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 18 | Feb. 5, 1998 |
Chester Higgins Jr., staff photographer for The New York Times since 1975, will speak at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 12, in Room 209 of the Trabant University Center.
His talk, free and open to the public, is presented in conjunction with the current photo exhibition in the University Gallery, "Through These Eyes: The Photographs of P.H. Polk." Polk, the official photographer of Tuskegee Institute (now University) mentored Higgins when he was a student there. Higgins will discuss Polk's influence on his career. A gallery reception will follow the lecture.
Higgins has combined photography with autobiographical writing in published texts and exhibitions, exploring the heritage, struggles and triumphs of Africans and African Americans.
He began his investigative work as an undergraduate, documenting the conditions of student unrest in 1965 at Tuskegee in Alabama before he graduated in 1970. During that time, he received his first lessons in photography and gained his interest in African-American subjects under the tutelage of Polk.
Higgins has since published several books and articles that along with his photos, form collective portraits of blacks from the United States and throughout the world. His works include, Black Women, Drums of Life, Some Time Ago and Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa.
Higgins has exhibited his photographs nationally and internationally at such places as the Smithsonian Museum's Center for African-American History and Culture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Walters Art Gallery and in American Embassy galleries around the globe. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography and the New York Public Library's Schomberg Center for the Study of African-American Culture.
The P.H. Polk exhibit at the University Gallery, on view through April 5, celebrates the centennial of this important and influential artist's birth. Polk's images of Southern life-from the dignitaries who visited Tuskegee and the middle class African Americans who frequented his private studio, to the farmers and laborers who worked in the cotton fields of Macon County-all exemplify the photographer's keen ability for telling a riveting human story through the camera's eye.
For more information on the Polk exhibit or Higgins' talk, call the University Gallery at 831-8242.
-Beth Thomas
