Little Mary by Jack Spencer Inverness, Mississippi, 1999 Toned silver gelatin print

LITTLE HEROES

by Connie Todd, Curator
The Wittliff Collections

In every child who is born, no matter
what circumstances, and of no matter
what parents, the potentiality of the
human race is born again and in her,
too, once more, and each of us, our
terrific responsibility toward human life. 
                                     --JAMES AGEE

Over the years I’ve noticed that in the Wittliff Gallery collection there are scores of photographs of children taken by a large number of our artists. We didn’t target these images as a collecting priority, rather they simply happened to be among the very best each particular artist had to offer, and I thought the why of it worth exploring.

Prior to the 18th century, children in art were often merely symbols, subjects for commercial portraiture, conceptualized as miniature adults; and later on in the 19th century they were idealized as innocents, healthy and beautiful. With the invention of the camera—and especially its availability to the masses--children became irresistible as subjects for both professional and amateur photographers.

This fascination with children—and by extension childhood—persists to the present day. Kids are splendid subjects—they’re available, they’re unself-conscious, sometimes even entering into a kind of dialog with the photographer as though it were a game of make believe. Jack Spencer told me that the subject of his photo, “Little Mary,” led him during their session to places and things she thought he should photograph. And then she danced for him—and that was the image that endured.

When I asked Graciela Iturbide why there are so many photographs of children in her body of work she said, “They’re always around.” A deceptively simple way of saying that they’re omnipresent in the artist’s imaginary landscape.

Photographers are hunters, searching for  beauty, truth, and amazing revelation; children provide all three at once—honesty, tragedy, unpredictability, and the loveliness of youth. In images of children photographers and viewers search for who we once were and what we have forgotten; we project our hopes and fears for the future onto these endlessly fascinating little figures. Children are our barometers—our fragile extensions into the real world—and we never tire of looking at them. They are our thrilling and terrifying second chance.

Geoff Winningham, as a documentary photographer in the 70s, created stunningly insightful series of familiar Texas phenomena: high school football, Houston wrestling, and the Houston fat stock show. Kids abound—we see ourselves in Geoff’s photographs and we also see small moments that reveal large truths about who we are as a community of human beings.

 
O. Rufus Lovett has just published his first monograph with U.T. Press entitled WEEPING MARY, about a small town in East Texas. The book is filled with children: of its 87 images, 48 feature kids. Patiently and delicately, Lovett sought out objects and people for us to contemplate: an egg, clothespins on a line, a pair of patent leather shoes; the symbolic accumulation of details that allows us to at least begin to understand a community of strangers.

Much of Antonio Turok’s most significant work has been done in and around San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. His photographs of the Maya reflect 30 years of experience and observation. Through his lens, these indigenous children reveal their dignity, their grace, and the strength it takes for a people—after 500 years of conquest—to remain true to their culture.

In his series of portraits of refugee children Sebastião Salgado encapsulates the plight of all refuges most effectively through his images of children, who appear as enigmatic figures at once the most effected and the least beaten down by the cruelties of displacement. It was in fact this paradox that lead him to publish his book of children’s photographs from which I quote, although we do not have any Salgado images in the exhibit: ”…And yet, unless they are seriously ill, pure energy surges from them even in the worst of circumstances. It is something experienced by every photographer who has worked among refugees or urban migrants. There are children everywhere, usually more visible than adults. When they see a camera, they jump with excitement, laughing, waving, pushing each other in the hope of being photographed. Sometimes their very joy gets in the way of recording what is happening to them. How can a smiling child represent deep misfortune? …When I returned home to Paris, I eventually got around to looking at these pictures and was immediately struck by their intensity. Children who had been laughing and shouting only seconds earlier were suddenly serious. The noisy crowd had become individuals who, through their clothes, their poses, their expressions and their eyes, were telling their stories with disarming frankness and dignity. Through their candid expressions, the sadness and suffering they had known in their short lives were poignantly apparent.”

Many of the Mexican photographers represented in the show include children in certain of their series. We selected pictures from Eniac Martinez’s series on the Mixtec migration from southern Mexico to California; Marco Antonio Cruz’s series on the blind in Mexico; Antonio Turok’s series on Chiapas; Graciela Iturbide’s series on Juchitán; Héctor García’s images of street life in Mexico City.

Keith Carter’s photos of children reach deep into his early background and personal esthetic. As a commercial photographer Keith’s mother made hundreds of portraits of kids, with Keith often playing the role of clown to make them smile. The children in Keith’s contemporary photos are not smiling, sometimes their backs are turned to the camera, they’re often surrounded by shadows, sometimes they’re masked; they are serious and often slightly threatened. Keith’s kids are symbolic, enigmatic, magical, reserving judgment perhaps on the uncertain future left to them by adults. And yet they bear up, true to themselves and their imagination.

During his career with the FSA in the 30s and the Coal Mines Administration in the 40s and with The Texas Observer in the 50s, Russell Lee took photographs designed to reveal social conditions in the U.S., and children were often his most expressive subjects. Although he had to use large, clumsy equipment with multiple flash bulbs for interiors, he was always the invisible observer, affording his viewers a close vantage point, often to poverty, but with a kind, non-judgmental point of view. Through setting and clothing and symbolism he could communicate misfortune even with a smiling child.

Mariana Yampolsky reminds me very much of Russell, and I know from conversations with her that she was a true fan of his work and recognized in him a kindred spirit, especially when it came to children. During one of her many creative careers, Mariana worked for the Ministry of Education in Mexico, producing a children’s magazine, among other duties. Always aware of the marginal position of underclass children, she took their pictures on her frequent photo excursions, daring her viewers to look away, imploring us to pay attention to the lives behind the images.

The kids prevail in this exhibition—although subject to the whims of fate, although living in a world they did not make, although small, sometimes poor, sometimes damaged, they are beautiful, they are frank, they are whimsical, they are imaginative, they are full of surprises, they will slay the dragons under the bed, they are little heroes. They are us.

LITTLE HEROES was curated by Connie Todd, from the Wittliff Gallery’s collection.
The exhibition runs March 24 through August 10, 2007