Ernest Withers: The Picture Taker
July 23 – October 23, 2022
Rezny Gallery
Kingston, NY — The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) presents the exhibition Ernest Withers: The Picture Taker in conjunction with the Woodstock Film Festival, September 28 – October 2, 2022, celebrating the world premiere of Phil Bertelsen’s documentary “The Picture Taker”.
For over sixty years, photographer Ernest C. Withers (1922-2007) recorded the everyday lives of the Black citizens of Memphis, Tennessee, a deeply segregated city, a remnant of the Jim Crow South. Withers photographed the Negro League baseball stars Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Ernie Banks at the ballpark home of the Memphis Red Sox. On Beale Street, he photographed blues musicians and early rock ‘n’ rollers, including B.B. King, Big Maybelle, Little Richard, Tina Turner, and of course Elvis. He photographed politicians, parades, parties, and communions. Withers was a community photographer.
But Withers’s greatest legacy is his unrivaled photographic record of the Civil rights activism in and around Memphis in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1955, Withers documented the trial of the murderers of Emmett Till, a young Black man killed for allegedly whistling at a White woman. Later he formed a close friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and photographed King at the historic Montgomery bus boycott of 1956, at Medgar Evers’s funeral in 1963, and at the Alabama state capitol in 1965. In 1968, King returned to Memphis to participate in a citywide march by striking sanitation workers, many carrying signs reading “I Am a Man.” On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis; Withers covered the funeral and aftermath. Unbeknownst to his movement colleagues, Withers was an informant for the FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO program, an illegal conspiracy designed to spy on and subvert social activists in the 1960s. This information was only revealed in 2010, years after Withers’s death.
ABOUT CPW
The Center for Photography at Woodstock is a vital hub for dialogue and discovery in photography and related media, bringing together a diverse array of artists and a vibrant community with a strong artistic tradition. Through its programs, CPW fosters opportunities to create and explore photography, and celebrate its role in contemporary culture.
A non-profit organization located in the heart of Hudson Valley, CPW has provided direct support to artists for over 40 years. Programs include exhibitions, residencies, workshops, digital and darkroom workspace, and more.
CPW receives support from the New York Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Art, the Joy of Giving Something, the Philip and Edith Leonian Foundation, Arts Mid-Hudson, our members and other supporters. The interactive gallery walk-through was made possible through NYSCA Electronic Media/Film in Partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund, with the support of New York Governor’s office and the New York State Legislature.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE AND LOCATION
The solo exhibition Ernest Withers: The Picture Taker will be on view at Rezny Gallery at 76 Prince Street in Kingston from July 23 – October 23, 2022. The gallery will be open on Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 – 5:00 pm as well as by appointment throughout the week. CPW galleries are free & open to the public.
Photo: I Am a Man: Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee, March 28th, 1968. Ernest Withers, 1968
Virtual Walkthrough
CPW’s exhibitions are free and open to the public due to the continued support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Art, Joy of Giving Something, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, our members, and other supporters.
This exhibition will also be viewable as a virtual walkthrough via Matterport, made possible with funds from the NYSCA Electronic Media/Film in Partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund, with the support of the New York State Legislature.