A Photographer of Note: Arkansas Artist Geleve Grice
Robert Cochran, Geleve GriceBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
In a selection of more than one hundred black and white images taken over a period of sixty years, this book bears witness to the life of a remarkable photographer and to small-town African American life in the middle of the twentieth century. Geleve Grice was born and raised near Pine Bluff, and he has documented the ordinary life of his community: parades, graduations, weddings, club events, and whatever else brought people together. In the process he created a remarkable historical portrait of an African American community. Through his lens we glimpse the daily patterns of segregated Pine Bluff, and we also participate in the excitement of greeting extraordinary visitors. Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Harry S. Truman, and others all came through town.Folklorist Robert Cochran worked with Grice to select these photographs from the thousands he has taken across a lifetime. They organized the work chronologically, reflecting Grice's early years in small-town Arkansas, his travel as a serviceman in World War II, and his long career in Pine Bluff. Cochran's accompanying chapters link Grice to the great tradition of American community photographers. He also shows how work for pay -- at the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College in Pine Bluff; at the Arkansas State Press daily newspaper; through his own studio -- shaped Grice's work. Cochran shows that Grice not only made his living taking photographs for jobs, but that he also made his own life by making photographs for himself -- and now for history.
Synopsis
Covering a period of 60 years, this book presents 100-plus b&w photographs taken by African American photographer Grice. The photographs document segregated life in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Preceding the photographs is text by Cochran (Center for Arkansas and Regional History, U. of Arkansas) that places Grice's work in the context of other American photographers and the changing historical times. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Library Journal
The director of the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies (Univ. of Arkansas), Cochran has assembled a book that both reveals the achievements of photographer Geleve Grice (b. 1922) and captures an accurate sense of life in a segregated Southern community. Grice spent most of his life in the town of Pine Bluff, where he worked for an African American newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, and also for the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College. Although the book covers Grice's work from 1942 to 2000, the most effective section includes pictures from the 1950s and 1960s, which focus on Pine Bluff and its connection to the Civil Rights Movement. Included here are pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and Silas Hunt, the first African American admitted to the University of Arkansas Law School. The black-and-white images, selected from Grice's newspaper work and his personal photography, also include many everyday scenes and gatherings of social and academic groups. Recommended for specialized African American collections or libraries with a regional interest in this title.-Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.