Harry Belafonte Whitney Houston Leontyne Price
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Acquisition of Jack Mitchell Photographs
Twenty-five Jack Mitchell photographs of important African American artists and performers are now a part of the permanent collection of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The acquisition includes lifetime vintage silver gelatin and color photographs made by Jack Mitchell over a career spanning five decades. Mitchell died in 2013 at age 88. His first ever cover photograph for a major magazine was of Haitian dancers for the May 1951 issue of Color Magazine.
The subjects include singer-songwriter Harry Belafonte, the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, actress Gloria Foster, singer Whitney Houston (in her first photo session with a professional photographer), dance company founders Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, dancer/actress Carmen de Lavallade, writers Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison, singer Odetta, actor Melvin Van Peebles, opera singer Leontyne Price, hip hop group Public Enemy, designer Willi Smith, La MaMa theatre founder Ellen Stewart, singer Donna Summer, actress Cicely Tyson, actor Ben Vereen, and dancer George White.
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opens September 24, 2016, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and will reflect the richness and diversity of the African American experience. Jack Mitchell’s photographs are also in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Andy Warhol Museum, the John Lennon Museum, Harvard University, the Metropolitan Opera Portrait Gallery, and many others.
View all 25 photographs on the Jack Mitchell Archives website, here:
http://www.jackmitchell.com/announcements.php
Craig B. Highberger
Executive Director, Jack Mitchell Archives