Oklahoma History Center’s Newest Photo Exhibit
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Beginning Monday, June 15, the Oklahoma History Center will offer a new photographic exhibit entitled “In the Vernacular: Everyday Images of Oklahoma Life,” which will celebrate everyday image-making.
The exhibit is expected to run for approximately one year, and is composed of 36 black-and-white and color images curated from the Oklahoma Historical Society’s photographic collections.
It will feature fun, quirky and sometimes odd images of Oklahomans. The photos were taken for a variety of purposes, including souvenir postcards, government archives, police case files, pin-up posters, networking websites, magazines, newspapers and family albums.
Vernacular photography is a genre comprised of family and professional studio portraits as well as casual snapshots.
These images are usually created by amateur photographers for documenting personal history. In the book “African American Vernacular Photography,” Brian Wallis, curator of the Walther Collection, describes the genre as “banal photographs, often recorded by the most ordinary photographers, small-town studio operators, professional photographers on assignment, dads with cameras in the backyard.”
According to Wallis, these images “contradict no apparent aesthetic ambition other than to record what passes in front of their camera with reasonable fidelity.”
The exhibit is on display in the Chesapeake Event Center and Gallery, which also is utilized for meetings and events. Patrons should call in advance to make sure the exhibit is open to the public during the time of their visit.
The Oklahoma History Center is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City. For more information and to check on viewing availability, please call 405-522-0765.
