The Wendel White photographs collection consists of two bodies of work that explore aspects of African American history through images of artifacts, historical printed pieces and manuscripts, and 21st century landscapes.
The first, "Manifest," comprises 45 24x30 inch color inkjet photographs of single objects relating to African American material culture and history, taken by White in various public and private collections throughout the U.S. Subjects in these stark images include a diary, printed notices, slavery narratives, a lock of Frederick Douglass's hair, a drum, a slave collar, a tobacco pouch, a tintype photograph, and other objects. "Manifest" is the 2015 winner of the Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award for Documentarians of Color.
The second portfolio, "Red Summer," refers to race-related violence against African Americans that took place from 1912 to 1923, with the majority occurring during the summer of 1919. It consists of 30 24x42 inch color photographs, taken from 2017 to 2018, of the sites across the United States where violence against African Americans - assaults, riots, lynchings - took place, paired with contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the events.
The photographer notes: "Several projects that have occupied my attention during the past two decades are, in retrospect, part of a broader effort to seek out the ghosts that continue to haunt the remnants of the past." The full artist's statements on "Manifest" and "Red Summer" are included in the series descriptions for those projects.
A photobook based on the "Manifest" project was published in 2014 by Chroma (California Institute of Integral Studies) as Manifest. Images from both projects have been exhibited in institutions across the U.S.
Wendel A. White was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He was awarded a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA in photography from the University of Texas at Austin. White is currently Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University in New Jersey.
He has received various awards and fellowships including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in photography, three artist fellowships from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts, a photography grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and a photography fellowship from En Foco Inc.
His work is represented in museum, library, corporate, and private collections. White's work is included in numerous publications including two books about his work, Manifest (published in 2014 by Chroma) and Small Towns, Black Lives (published in 2003 by the Noyes Museum of Art).
White has served on the board of directors for the Society for Photographic Education, the Atlantic City Historical Museum, New Jersey Black Culture and Heritage Foundation, and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
White's "Manifest" porfolio is the 2015 winner of the Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award for Documentarians of Color. The ADA Collection Awards were established to diversify the ADA's collection in order to better reflect the multitude of viewpoints and communities from which work is being made in the documentary arts today.
