The piece of artwork I chose in the Carnegie Museum of Art is a photograph by Charles Harris entitled “Lifeguard teaching boy to swim, with Thomas Strawder and Thomas McDaniels to left, in Highland Park swimming pool.” This photo was taken in 1951, with the exact date being unknown. Harris resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This photo was taken of children who were swimming in the Highland Park swimming pool. To begin describing the photo, it is important to note that the photo is in black and white. The swimming pool is huge and extends past the width of the photograph, as well as taking up about ¾ the height of the picture. There are probably about 40 people in this photo; those being the children in the pool and the people in the background. There are both caucasian and african american’s pictured in this photograph. The majority of people in this picture, however, are white. Because this photo was taken of people in a pool, the waves of the water give the photo “texture.” Obviously, the photo is flat and has no actual texture, but the waves contained within the photo add an interesting aspect to it. The waves show that the children were most likely playing in the pool, creating motion and splashes which created the rippling/wave effect. If the water in this picture was flat, the photo would have been more boring and might not have made it into the exhibition at the Carnegie Museum. The texture of the water make the photo more appealing to the human eye. Standing in the center of the photo in the pool was the lifeguard. He was a male african american with a whistle around his neck. The lifeguard appeared to be around 18 years of age and was in good physical shape. He was holding a little caucasian boy afloat, teaching him how to swim. The little boy appears to be about six or seven years of age. There are about 10 other boys standing behind the lifeguard, observing the couple as they worked on what appeared to be swimming lessons. There is a young female in the lower right corner of the photo wearing a one piece bathing suit and a swim cap. The young lady appears to be trying to cross the pool, but was captured in the photo while en route.
Charles Harris was the third son of William “Monk” and Ella Mae “Olga” Harris. He was born in 1908 and lived in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, which was the african american section of the city. Growing up, Harris and his brother George would take photos for fun, but thought nothing of pursuing a career in the field. It was also during this time that Harris earned the nickname “Teenie” (McDannell, 2015). This nickname was given to Harris by one of his cousins who called him “Teenie Little Lover,” and was eventually shortened by the family to just “Teenie.” Harris was a normal kid who went to school all the way up until eighth grade, but shortly after went off to play in the semi-pros. In the 1930s, Harris finally purchased his first professional camera. In 1936, Harris was offered a job with the Pittsburgh Courier but denied the position due to the low pay. From 1937 to 1939, Harris’ photographs began to appear in Flash Magazine which was published in Washington, D.C. In 1940, Harris photographs became regularly featured in the The Pittsburgh Courier. The Pittsburgh Courier was said to be “The most widely circulated African American weekly newspaper in the twentieth century, the Pittsburgh Courier had by the late 1940s, twenty-one editions nationwide, 450,000 subscribers, and more than a million readers” (Slate, 2012, p 272). It was also during this time that he established his own studio. In 1953, Harris closed his studio and was mainly focused on the Civil Right era. Harris predominantly captured the life of those in the black neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He captured famous visitors of the Pittsburgh area such as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, and Muhammad Ali. Up until the 1960s, Harris’ photos were captured in black and white. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that Harris began to incorporate color into his films. Harris remained working for the Pittsburgh Courier until the mid 1970s when he was honored as “Citizen of the Week.” Teenie Harris signed a management contract with Dennis Morgan, a pittsburgh entrepreneur, in the late 1980s. During this time, his photos became more widely known. Harris realized that what he was promised by Morgan was not coming to him, so he sued. Unfortunately, Harris passed away before the lawsuit was settled. When the issue was settled though, it was settled in favor of Harris. The photos were returned to the estate of Charles Harris and in 2001, the collection was purchased by the Carnegie Museum of Art (Kelly, 2016).
Harris took his photographs from 1940 until the mid 1970s. He was known for his photography which was mostly taken in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Harris was the first black photographer to join Pittsburgh’s Newspaper Guild. He mostly shot his photos of everyday activities such as people at work, children at school, lunch at counters and bars, people at ballgames and barbershops, and in church. The popular thing about his photos was that they were very real events that were captured with such taste (Library Journal, 2002). The Hill District was an all black neighborhood that was known as a strong community with a strong reputation for poise, responsibility, and social unity. Having strong social ties and the ability to network within the Hill District was one of many positive features you had if residing in this area of town. The area was also safe, so it was common for children to run around and play in the streets and playgrounds without supervision (Florez, 2016). Through the many years that Harris photographed, the Civil Rights Movement was taking place in the United States and took a toll on Pittsburgh in relation to segregation. African americans were not fully welcomed and segregation still took place in other areas of Pittsburgh. However, the Hill District embraced the cultural diversity and was welcoming to all races in their restaurants, theaters, parks, and pools. Harris was able to capture the prominence that African American female impersonators once had in the nightclubs and streets of the Hill District (Grantmyre, 2011). In addition to this, the Hill District was also very sexually versed. Prostitutes were not uncommon, and the stigma surrounding them was much more positive than in today’s world. Back then, prostitutes could be termed “high class” and would also reside in nicer homes rather than lower income housing. The Hill District highly accepted pimps and prostitutes. Within this community, it was separated into two different socioeconomic places. The Upper Hill was where the middle class families and individuals resided, and the Lower Hill was where the lower class people lived in boarding houses and “bordellos.” The Hill District also boasted with blues and jazz clubs and musicians. The night-life and entertainment very much contributed to the social unity and publicness of the community (Grantmyre, 2011). The photo entitled “Lifeguard teaching boy to swim, with Thomas Strawder and Thomas McDaniels to left, in Highland Park swimming pool,” is a good depiction of the unity exemplified during this time in the Hill District. The children shown in this photo are unsupervised and innocently playing with each other. There was no need for parents to worry about their child’s safety because there was not as much violence as there is today. It was completely normal for children to walk to school, take the public transit wherever they wished, and do as they pleased until the streetlights came on. When the street lights came on, this meant it was getting dark and it was time to go home, get washed up, and ready for bed. Other examples of the themes of Harris’ photography is nightlife, children, musicians, wartime, play, and sports. All of his photographs exemplified the life that was once lived in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Today, the Hill District is one of the lowest class areas of Pittsburgh and the place that once boasted with class and entertainment, no longer resides as such.
This photograph as well as all of Harris’ work is part of the realism art movement. Realism is an art movement that represented things in a lifelike manner taken from their surroundings versus ideas or mythology. His photographs represented everyday life in the Hill District.
In order for a piece of art to represent a certain movement, it must have certain characteristics that are specific to that movement. Realism was a part of modern art that represented daily life and the real social, economic, political, and racial problems within the world. Harris’ photos were all representative of these problems within the world at this time. He took photographs which depicted the life of children, adults, political activists, performers, etc., of the Hill District in Pittsburgh. In a photo captured by Harris, two deacons conducted a baptism in the meeting of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers (Trotter & Day, 2010). This was an example of a photo that represents realism because it is a photo that was not a staged nor directed that captured an event. The specific photo that I chose from the Carnegie Museum showed the typical life of children during the 1950s. Harris painted pictures of Pittsburgh’s Hill District as a thriving community showing the practice of everyday life (Smith, 2012).
This piece of artwork is harder to analyze and interpret because it is a photograph. The elements contained within the photo are harder to pick out because the photo is also in black and white. Although this photo is in black and white, it serves a purpose having a lack of color. Because of this coloring, I think it makes the photograph easier to associate with a specific timeframe. Most people know that black and white photos were very common before the 1960s, so this provides with information crucial to the initial breakdown of the photo. The photograph included lines, but they were natural within the photograph. It involved lines that followed the people’s bodies, the water, and background, and the objects in the background. Naturally, a human eye will follow lines within a piece of art. The lines within the children’s arms are the first lines to be noticed within the photograph. This photograph incorporates a ton of movement. Because the children are located in a pool, the first type of movement that can be noted is the water. The water is not still; there are waves. This adds “texture” to the photo and makes it more interesting and appealing to the eye. This also can help a person infer that the children are all playing in the water because it would not be moving otherwise. There is also movement of the people in the photo. This makes it more interesting because now the photo tells a story and allows the viewer to create their own version of the story in their head from the movement of the people. Because this is a photo which is printed rather than painted, there is no physical texture that could be observed with the sense of touch. Instead, there is texture within the photo that is created by the movement of the water, and the greenery in the background. Also contained within this photo are countless geometric shapes. There are triangles, rectangles, ovals, and circles which can be seen from a broader perspective. If the viewer stops seeing all the detail within the photo, the pool becomes a large rectangle, the people become rectangles with ovals attached, and the wall in the back becomes a large, stretched out rectangle. An item that forms a more abstract shape is the lifeguard’s whistle around his neck. This could be seen as a triangle or possible even an oval.
In Harris’ early life, his photographs had no value. He took photos for fun, but at this point had no intentions of ever doing anything with them. As he continued taking pictures and bought his first professional camera, he began featuring his photos in Flash Magazine and working for the Pittsburgh Courier. He was employed by the Pittsburgh Courier for many years, taking photos that were featured in the newspaper every week. Later in Harris’ life, he signed a contract with an entrepreneur. After he signed the contract, Harris never received what he was promised. There ended up being a lawsuit that was settled after Harris’ death that returned all of his photos back to his estate. The collection was then bought by the Carnegie Museum of Art. There is no data stating how much the collection sold for, but one source says some of Harris’ photos sold for up to 500 dollars (www.myauntionfinds.com, 2011). Not only does Harris’ photos have monetary value, but they hold value which documents the life he lived in the 1900s. A lot of his pictures show events that people would not know about if it wasn’t for his photographs. Today, his pictures take us back to a time that some of us could not experience ourselves, and helps us to understand how life was during those years. They illustrate how life was back during those times and create a clear picture that depicts the life that african americans lived in the Hill District back during those times. For this, his photos hold precious value.
I like the photograph I chose and I enjoyed doing research on Teenie Harris and his photographs as a whole. The photograph that I chose from the Carnegie Museum of Art is unique. I think it displayed the innocence that children had back in the 1950s, as well as the unity of people in some areas of Pittsburgh during that time. Before doing this research, I did not realize how different the Hill District was back then from what it is today. Analyzing the specific photo also opened up my mind to realize the role that racism and segregation played into the world during this time. Seeing this picture made me realize that there people out there who were for unity and togetherness during this tough time in American history.
The experience that I had at the Carnegie Museum of Art was a positive one. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the museum trip with the class because I had to work, but I went on my own a few days later and truly enjoyed it. I had been there countless times before because I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I found that I had a new appreciation for the artwork within the museum. After learning about the different art movements, I was able to recognize different paintings and associate them with their artist and the time period it was created. It was cool to finally be able to piece everything together in a real life situation and feel knowledgeable about a subject that I have never been confident in.