A Million Faces: The Photography of John W. Mosley
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia
September 24, 2016 - January 16, 2017
In partnership with the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Woodmere Art Museum presents the exhibition A Million Faces: The Photography of John W. Mosley. The exhibition's title was sparked by Mosley’s own assessment that the positive achievement of his photography was to chronicle the black community of Philadelphia in his time through “nearly a million faces.”
John W. Mosley (1907-1969) migrated to Philadelphia in 1934 during the Great Migration from Lumberton, North Carolina. From the late 1930s through the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s, he and his large-format accordion-style Graflex camera were a frequent presence in the lives of black Philadelphians. Selftaught, he was enthralled with the ability of photography to create a permanent visual record of living history and life’s moments. Mosley was the longtime staff photographer for the Pyramid Club and was also published in the Philadelphia Tribune, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, the Pittsburgh Courier and other black newspapers along the East Coast. He worked seven days a week, often shooting four events in a single day. His legacy of more than 300,000 photographs is preserved in the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries. This exhibition presents over 100 photographs (many of them never shown in public before) and a retrospective view of Mosley’s practice, with attention to his point of view as an artist.
“Mosley is an extraordinary artist and storyteller,” says William Valerio, Director and CEO of Woodmere. “Taken together, Mosley’s photography offers a distinct Philadelphia story, representing Philadelphia’s black community with complexity and joy, all in the difficult context of a segregated society.”
Included in the exhibition are photographs of glamorous women, politicians, churchgoers, agrarian workers, and beachcombers, as well as civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cecil B. Moore and celebrities, artists, and sports figures, including Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Lena Horne, Roy Campanella, Marian Anderson, Jackie Robinson, Bill Cosby, Dox Thrash, Duke Ellington, Wilt Chamberlain, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.
Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to share information and tell their own stories as they relate to Mosley’s photographs. Visitors to the Woodmere website see a “Share Your Stories” prompt. Every Monday for the duration of the exhibition, selected photos are highlighted on Woodmere’s social channels inviting visitors to share their thoughts. Many of these additional stories will be collected in a catalogue that is intended to document both the exhibition and the community response to it.
Charles L. Blockson, Curator Emeritus of Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries says, “These photos are part of history and they belong to the future.”
A Million Faces: The Photography of John W. Mosley demonstrates that these photos are also very much a part of our present.
WOODMERE ART MUSEUM
9201 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19118
