→ Photo Info (Here) Baldwin Lee Untitled. (Basketball)
1985 In the mid nineteen-eighties, Baldwin Lee began a photographic body of work that was initially funded by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant. His travels took him all through the south and the prominent subject from this body of work became “Black Americans in the South.” The photography is stunning and powerful. His use of the large format camera has the clarity of a dedicated and severely focused artist excited by the potential inspirations that exist within a wandering photographic exploration. Baldwin is synonymous with Tennessee because of his indelible presence and delivered influence as a tenured professor at the University of Tennessee where, in 1982, he created the photography program. When looking at the photograph of the basketball players, you cannot escape the directness of interaction between the subjects and the photographer. It is something that is so masterfully done, that thoughts of the photographer’s close presence fade away and are immediately replaced by the experience of the viewer in the gallery standing before the photograph. There is a certain implied sexuality to the photograph that is probably better read as a strutting display of confidence within the timelessness and invincibility of young manhood.

Untitled (Basketball)
Baldwin Lee
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