Charles “Teenie” Harris’s photographs are alive. The famed photojournalist earned the title “One Shot” Harris for how fast he captured his subjects, catching them in moments of joy or contemplation they might not have even realized were on their faces. Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art houses 80,000 of these living archival works, but visitors never get to see the majority of them. This November, the museum reconfigured their presentation of Harris’s work for a brand-new viewing experience.
Prior to the reinstallation, Harris’s photos were in the back of the Scaife Galleries. They now will be in one of the largest viewing spaces in the Carnegie, Scaife 7. Scaife 7 also has some of the most foot traffic in the museum, since it’s the location of the restrooms. (I worked in a public-facing position at the Carnegie, and hence this piece of direction advice is burned into my mind forever). Community Archivist Charlene Foggie-Barnett told TABLE that that placement is intentional for accessibility purposes. “It’s particularly good for visitors from older generations who might need to use the facilities quickly,” she explained. But part of the new exhibition’s goal is to make sure people don’t just see Harris’s work as relics from the past, but also contemporarily relevant.
Carnegie Museum of Art’s Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive Gallery Celebrates Past, Present and Future
“Our most important step is to engage a younger demographic,” Foggie-Barnett said. “I’ve found in the 16 years I’ve been working with this catalogue that children are even more excited in some ways, because they see themselves in these photos. They relate very well. We wanted to make sure we had a large enough area to do programming in the space.”
Within the new gallery, there will be moving images on 16mm film and headphones to listen to oral histories from Hill District community members. The museum will also be including never-before-seen negatives of Harris’s work. Foggie-Barnett explained that many younger visitors haven’t encountered photo negatives before. “This gallery will have the breadth of what’s in the archive,” she said. All 80,000 of the archival materials will get some time on view over the years.
To Foggie-Barnett, this archive is not just an academic or artistic project. She began her career at the museum by volunteering to share her personal story. Her family was close with Harris, and she herself is in many of his photographs. Harris first took her photo when she was only three months old, at her baptism. “I grow up in the archive from a toddler to an adult,” she said. “I’ve found my cousins and brother swimming at the Y, my uncle’s funeral home, everything you can imagine, graduation photos, church photos, my cousins doing civic work…”
Part of Foggie-Barnett family’s closeness with Harris come from her father’s church’s physical closeness to the YMCA Harris frequented. “Teenie would be coming to Pittsburgh Courier offices nearby, or at the YMCA taking photos or playing ping-pong. He and my dad were vying for ping pong champion,” she remembered.
Bringing the Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive to Life
Prior to this re-design, the museum displayed Harris’s photos in a few places around the museum. Some were in the back of Scaife, others were in the basement space near the theater, and a selection was in Scaife 17, the “Pittsburgh Anthology” gallery focused on regional work. In 17, one photo in particular stood out to me when I worked in the galleries. It’s a photo of Harris himself, taken by the late Aaronel deRoy Gruber. Harris is in his eighties in it, but looks lively and vivacious, doing a high kick over the fence at his house. The deRoy Gruber image exemplifies Harris’s joie de vivre and the satisfaction he took in his long, fruitful career.
Though that image will go back into storage to give new things their moment in the spotlight, the reinstallation of Harris’s photographs has the same spirit of joy to it. “The nice thing in will be that everything will be in one place,” Foggie-Barnett said. “You’ll get a broader understanding that Teenie is the proof of the African-American community not just in Pittsburgh but in this country. You see in these photos that we had silver tea sets and nice clothing. We aren’t Amos and Andy and we’re not the Obamas. Our real lifestyles and real accomplishments and honest way of living is depicted in all of these images. All of that is explained without a single word in Teenie’s photos.”
A celebration for the Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive Gallery will take place on November 2, 2PM-5PM, free and open to the public with live jazz performance by Roger Humphries and Friends.
Story by Emma Riva / Images courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
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