Photographer Shelby Lee Adams Speaks at SU Apr. 25

SALISBURY, MD---For nearly 40 years, award-winning photographer Shelby Lee Adams has captured the humanity of Appalachia through his lens.

Works by the acclaimed artist, from the Salisbury University Collection, are displayed during the exhibit “The 4th Generation: Shelby Lee Adams 1974-Current.” The photographs hang in the Atrium Gallery of the Guerrieri University Center March 11-May 4.

A lecture by Adams is 5 p.m. Thursday, April 25, in the Nanticoke Room of the Guerrieri University Center, followed by a reception in the gallery at 6 p.m.

Adams was born in Hazard Kentucky, a small town at the base of the Appalachian Mountains. He was re-introduced to “Holler Dwellers”, the people of the Kentucky Appalachia, after graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art while traveling the area with his uncle, a local doctor to capture its people and their lifestyle on film. Since then, he has photographed many generations, including members of the Claudill family, whom he continues to document today.

His works have been compiled into a series of books, most recently 2011’s Salt & Truth. A documentary about his career, The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’s Appalachia, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, among others, in 2003.

Adams has earned photography fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His works are part of many private collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Gallery hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday, Monday and holidays. SU galleries also are closed March 16-25. Sponsored by University Galleries, admission is free and the public is invited.

For more information call 410-548-2547 or visit the SU Galleries Web site at www.salisbury.edu/universitygalleries.