Once Upon A Time, Saving Black Images

Once Upon A Time, Saving African-American Images

                                                      Junious Ricardo Stanton

            Until January 31, the Slought Art Gallary at 4017 Walnut Street is featuring Once Upon A Time a fascinating collection of black and white photographs taken by Hy John McLamb and his wife Bessie. Hy John Mclamb was a professional photographer during the 1930′s and 40′s and his wife Bessie kept the business going into the late 1960′s following the death of her husband in the 1944. Hy John McLamb was a ventriloquist, traveling showman and entrepreneur who also maintained a studio and dark room at 1624 South Street. His wife Bessie who continued the business after her husband passed worked solely out of the 1624 South Street studio, rarely venturing out to photograph her subjects. After her death the collection was kept by their nephew Edward.

            The collection exhibited at the Slought Gallery contains over five hundred photographs of African-American men women and children on the walls as well as slide presentations of hundreds more. All the photographs feature African-American men women and children in their Sunday best clothing. Mrs. Betty Ann Davis Lawrence first saw the collection over thirty years ago. Mrs. Lawrence a spry and effervescent personality was a long time educator in the Philadelphia school system. Upon seeing the collection of hundreds perhaps thousands of pictures Mrs. Lawrence was greatly impressed and asked if she could purchase them. She eventually did and kept the collection in her home. She felt the public should know about Bessie McLamb’s work so she took some of the pictures to Louis Massiah the founder of the Scribe Video Center who helped her create an exhibit of the photos and find a venue to display the collection.

             Mrs. Lawrence had the good fortune to be assigned to the Philadelphia Art Museum where she conducted tours of the Museum for twenty of your thirty plus years as a teacher. Mrs. Lawrence’s affinity for photographs is hereditary. Both her parents took pictures, her mother took portraits and her father shot nature scenery. Mrs. Lawrence herself was a photography hobbyist. She has a keen eye for art, light and pictures so she recognized the artistic and historical value of the McLamb collection. She offered to purchase the collection from Mrs. McLamb’s nephew but he declined to sell it.

            Eventually he changed his mind and Mrs. Lawrence purchased the whole collection but refuses to disclose how much she paid for it. “Her nephew came to my husband’s real estate office. She had left everything to him, they had no children. He told me about it and I went there. I didn’t take a camera. I had no idea I’d be so enthralled. It was like being in a time warp. It was clean it had been dusted, there were candles, a sorts of books and he (Hy John McLamb) even had a stuffed alligator. I was so sorry I didn’t take a picture of the stuffed animals. I could hit myself because I didn’t take pictures of that shop while it still existed.” Shared Mrs. Lawrence.

            Referring to the shop and photos she said, “This was a neighborhood thing, Bessie McLamb did not go out looking for work, the people came to her.” Speaking of the collection on exhibit she stated,  “I don’t know how many pictures are in the exhibit. I think they are wonderful pictures. There are photographs that Hy John and Mrs. McLamb took and there is a separate space where they focus on pictures of Mrs. McLamb and pictures that were theirs’.”

            Mrs. Lawrence didn’t put the photos in frames. “I didn’t want frames because that’s like jail. The pictures are displayed in sleeves just like they are in the notebook. But when you go there (the gallery) you are not aware the pictures are in sleeves. There is nothing there that takes away from what Bessie saw. They (the subjects) got dressed up, they are clean and they are healthy and they’re not what I call stolen images, pictures that white people take on the street and think they have captured the essence of Black people. Nobody looks like they are angry or that they didn’t want to be there.”, explained Mrs. Lawrence.

            The Slought Gallery exhibit is unique and special because the pictures were taken during a time when African-Americans were either ignored or denigrated, when images of Blacks taken by whites were almost always unflattering and demeaning. Hy John and Bessie McLamb’s photographs are the polar opposites of that. They depict Black people at their best in their finery presenting them in a positive light.

            Anastasia Colzie the curator and research fellow at the Slought Gallery is delighted the collection is on display. “The whole idea behind this exhibit is to allow people to see this work because it’s been hidden for over thirty years in Betty’s home. So this is her way of getting the public to be able to interact with this work and see what Bessie and Hy John were up to. Blacks didn’t have spaces like this to go to or didn’t have them available to see this kind of work. I think this is really important because it tells a different story about Philadelphia and what different people in Philadelphia were doing with themselves during a very specific time  period. It (the exhibit) gives you a sense there is a whole different side of that story, there’s a sense of pride in community and there’s a different way of projecting or presenting yourself not just in a private setting but in a public setting that was completely ignored or overshadowed by other testimonies. It gives Black people of the sixties onward a way to express themselves in ways they weren’t allowed to.” 

            The exhibit will be at the Slought Gallery until January 31. For gallery hours or additional information call (215) 701-4627.