Hugh Mangum at Muzeo

Please enjoy this glimpse of the preview reception of “Where We Find Ourselves: The Photography of Hugh Mangum” at the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim, California.

Hugh Mangum (1877-1922), born in Durham, North Carolina, became a photographer at the height of Jim Crow racial segregation, discrimination, and violence. His photography defied key traditions of his age and time, social and artistic, and had the rare ability to capture the inner feelings of his sitters.

Mangum began his professional life as an itinerant photographer working with a Penny Picture portrait camera. His traveling studio had a straight-forward approach: affordable pictures, quickly produced, day or night, rain or shine, no records kept of those portrayed. He pitched his tent in town after town, photographing people of all colors and walks of life at prices that allowed even the most humble to afford his services. His welcoming approach allowed sitters to express themselves as they wished, without kitschy props and devoid of the grotesque racial characterizations so common in his lifetime.

The glass negatives, abandoned in the family tobacco barn and exposed to the elements since Mangum’s premature death in 1922, lay forgotten for fifty years. They now come alive in a brilliant edition by noted authors and curators Alex Harris and Margaret Sartor, who recognized that the erosion of time had its own alchemy. Previously exhibited at a blockbuster opening at the Nasher Museum at Duke University and at ACA Galleries, New York City, it is now presented for the first time on the West Coast.

On display through June 23rd.

Thank you to Landau Traveling Exhibitions, our collaborator ACA Galleries New York, Patricia Lanza, and Alitash Kebede.