Opening night is Friday, September 9th and includes a discussion panel at 6pm and reception at 7pm on Crealdé School of Art main campus and a live jazz reception featuring music from the 40s and 50s at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center at 8:30pm.
This two venue exhibition features
-Ellie Lee Weems: Photographs of the La Villa Community in Jacksonville
-Gordon Parks: Portrait of the Midway Neighborhood in Daytona Beach
-Selections from family photographs of Hannibal Square Community
This original exhibition explores a little-known aspect of history which reveals the shared strength of African-American communities in Florida prior to desegregation, urban renewal and the Civil Rights era. Photographs depicting community life in the historic La Villa neighborhood, once known as “the Harlem of the South” in the 1940s and 1950s, were taken by the late Jacksonville African-American professional photographer Ellie Weems and were obtained from the archives of the Ritz Theatre and Museum. These images are paired with mid-century selections from Crealdé’s Heritage Collection: Photographs and Oral Histories of West Winter Park. Gordon Park’s 1943 photographs of the Midway neighborhood in Daytona Beach will be on loan from The Southeast Museum of Photography. Prints from each are available for viewing at both venues.
About Crealdé School of Art
Crealdé School of Art is a community based non-profit arts organization established in 1975. It features a year-round curriculum of over 100 visual arts classes for students of all ages, taught by a faculty of 40 working artists; a renowned Summer ArtCamp for children and teens; a Visiting Artist workshop series; three galleries, the Contemporary Sculpture Garden, and award-winning outreach programs. Crealdé’s second campus, the Hannibal Square Heritage Center, opened in 2007 in partnership with the City of Winter Park as an extension of Crealdé’s community programs. Through the award-winning Heritage Collection, the center pays tribute to the contributions of Winter Park’s historic African American community.
