The Pruitt Project

09/02/2024

The panel this past week featuring a distinguished group of experts providing insights and posing questions about the “Possum Town: Pruitt Project” Photo Exhibition drew an audience from near ito venue in Helena,Arkansas, but also from Little Rock, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Many of those in attendance also viewed the photographs, on display at the Delta Cultural Center. The exhibition features photographs by Columbus, Mississippi-based photographer O.N. Pruitt, who worked in the area in the early-to-middle 20th century. Some were seeing the exhibition for the first time while others had seen it in previous exhibitions. The exhibit will be on display through September 13 and is free and open to the public. More information is available online at https://www.arkansasheritage.com/delta-cultural-center/exhibits/current-exhibits.

08/27/2024

If you're within driving distance of Helena, Arkansas, you should make plans to see the newest Pruitt Project exhibition on display through September 13, 2024. You can read all about it in this story from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ArkansasOnline.com. Mentioned is also a panel discussion scheduled for this Thursday (August 29} featuring Berkley Hudson; Rachel Boillot, large-format photographer and art department professor at Arkansas State University; W. Ralph Eubanks, faculty fellow at the University of Mississippi Center for the Study of Southern Culture and former publishing director of the Library of Congress; and Tom Rankin, professor of the practice of art, art history and visual studies at Duke University.

From 1920 to 1960, Otis Noel Pruitt used his camera to document the lives of the people who lived in and around Columbus, Miss. From baptisms in the nearby Tombigbee River to parades, revivals, studio portraits, the aftermath of tornadoes, downtown crowds and more, Pruitt was there with his camera,....

06/05/2023

If you're in the Columbus area tomorrow, this is a great opportunity to hear more about the Pruitt Project.

06/05/2023

04/17/2022

The Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi in Oxford hosted project curator Berkley Hudson, a University of Mississippi graduate and University of Missouri emeritus professor, last week for a panel discussion related to the Pruitt Possum Town photo exhibition. The panel detailed how a trove of 88,000 negatives was preserved from history’s dustbin to illuminate not only the past, but the present.
A recording of the panel discussion is available at this link on YouTube.

From 1920 to 1960, O.N. Pruitt photographed his fellow citizens (both Black and white) in Columbus, Mississippi, surrounding northeast Mississippi and Alabam...

04/08/2022

Pruitt Exhibition curator Berkley Hudson was a guest of MPB - Mississippi Public Broadcasting where he talked about the exhibit and companion book and his work to save these photos so they could be viewed by more people. Berkley's interview starts about 2:58 minutes into the broadcast.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting is MPB. Mississippi is Our Mission.

04/07/2022

The Pruitt Possum Town photo exhibit, now on display in Columbus at the Columbus Arts Council, will be leaving the state after April 23rd. This post is to remind those who want to see it that time is short. It is also to advise of three related events taking place in the state over the next week.

Jackson, MS - Lemuria Bookstore - Saturday, April 9, 2 p.m.
Signing Event of Pruitt Project companion hardback book on Pruitt and his photographs, "O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South" with exhibit curator and book author Berkley Hudson.

Oxford, MS - University of Mississippi’s Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics - Monday, April 11, 5:30 p.m.
Panel — Separate and Sometimes Equal: O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town Photographs of Mississippi Trouble & Resilience.
Overby Center panelist Berkley Hudson, a University of Mississippi graduate and University of Missouri emeritus professor, will detail how a trove of 88,000 negatives was preserved from history’s dustbin to illuminate not only the past, but the present.Hudson will be joined in discussion by photographer Timothy Ivy and novelist Deborah Johnson.
Ivy, a University of Mississippi journalism graduate, is a documentary and editorial portrait photographer based in Oxford, Mississippi. His work focuses on experiences and cultures of everyday people, particularly in the southern United States. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, the New York Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, Veranda, Oxford American, Ebony, and Jet. Johnson is the author of The Air Between Us, which received the Mississippi Library Association Award for fiction. She lives in Columbus, and is working on her next novel. She teaches in Stanford University’s continuing studies online writing program.

Columbus, MS - Mississippi University for Women - April 12, 6 p.m.
Rent Auditorium in Whitfiled Hall on the W campus
Panel - “O.N. Pruitt’s Pictures of Trouble and Resilience: Uncovering Common Ground” will feature a panel of experts reflecting on Pruitt’s photos and their stories — and how the past may provide possible answers, at least for some questions the images prompt.
Panel members include moderator Berkley Hudson, exhibit curator and author of the companion book; Alexa Dilworth and Tom Rankin, both of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; documentary filmmaker Zaire Love of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi; and William Williams, fine arts professor at Haverford College. The event is free and open to the public.
Photo credit for the Pruitt photos - Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press (January 2022)
Book photo courtesy of Lemuria Booksto

03/14/2022

Still doing cartwheels about New York Times Sunday Book Review's full page feature on my new book, O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town. The project website, links to buy book, and more can be found here: https://linktr.ee/ThePruittProject.

See full NYT review right here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/books/review/o-n-pruitt-possum-town.html

“O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town” captures the soul — and soullessness — of a Mississippi town in the first half of the 20th century.

03/14/2022

Am continuing to do cartwheels of delight that New York Times Book Review featured today my new book, O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town. Press

“O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town” captures the soul — and soullessness — of a Mississippi town in the first half of the 20th century.

01/30/2022

This coming Thursday, Feb. 3, in Columbus, Mississippi, will mark the launch of a traveling exhibition of powerful Mississippi photos that connect the past with the present. Exhibit of over 100 photos will be displayed at the Columbus Arts Council until April 23rd. It is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Thanks for the write up The Commercial Dispatch - appreciate the hometown love.

Curatorial, Inc..
University of North Carolina Press
Missouri School of Journalism

For over 40 years, Otis Noel Pruitt — who usually went by his last name, “Mr.” or O.N. — captured snapshots of life in northeastern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama.

01/25/2022

Check out this new Garden and Gun story about Pruitt's photographs in the new book, O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Reislience in the American South.

O. N. Pruitt’s rare photos of Jim Crow–era Mississippi feature in a new book

01/17/2022

I'm so excited to let ya'll know that this Tuesday, January 18, UNC Press is publishing my new book, O. N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South. I appreciate your support during these many decades of work. I'm thrilled that these photos are making their way out into the wider world. Please tell everyone you know.

From 1920 to 1960, O.N. Pruitt, a White photographer in a racially segregated city, recorded the intimacies of daily life in his hometown of Columbus, Mississippi. Pruitt’s remarkable photographs of this small-town community provide a unique window on the Jim Crow American South in a time of change, offering a point of departure for thinking about complex interrelations of community, culture, race, photography, and memory.

Pruitt’s work is distinguished by a seemingly boundless determination to record the customs, traditions, celebrations, joys, and sorrows of his neighbors, with a sensitivity that is rare among commercial photographers of the time. Together, these pictures provide an unparalleled view on a nation in transition, revealing a history that is at once painful and uplifting.

I've set up a Facebook and Instagram account to show a few of the featured photos as well as to let people know about upcoming events - including an exhibit opening in Columbus, MS on February 3rd - where you can see the images in person. Exhibit closes in Columbus April 23, 2022.