Happy Creativity Thursday!
Last week, I visited Spelman College Museum of Fine Art’s Posing Beauty in African American Culture exhibition. Posing Beauty features over 75 photographs that span 12 decades (1890 to the present). It is the first exhibition I have ever seen that explores and challenges widespread and historic notions of African American beauty in photography. Deborah Willis, Ph.D., served as the curator of Posing Beauty. Willis is one of my favorite authors and photographers. She is also one of leading historians of African American photography.
While exploring the exhibition, I discovered and fell in love with a selection of cabinet cards featuring Spelman College faculty, students, and alumnae. Cabinet cards are photographic portraits mounted on 4 1/4 by 6 1/2 inch cards that people traded with each other in the early 1870s. They reminded me of several cabinet cards I have of my great grandmother Eunice Ann Thomas Roberts.
If you are in Atlanta, make sure you see the exhibition. It closes on December 7. Be sure to follow Spelman Museum on Twitter and Instagram. Like it on Facebook.
Ananda Leeke 