In Carol, photographer Paul Black presents some of his earliest works taken over the first two decades of his marriage to his wife Carol. The collection of photographs and Polaroids, offer an intimate glimpse into a time and place that is instantly familiar: when relationships are new, and a young couple begins to create a life together.
The exhibition will be mostly comprised of 15 x 15” black and white portraits, as well as a collection of Polaroids all ranging in dates from 1968-1972.
The Exhibition was curated by Allison V. Smith and 1814 Magazine.
Catalogue:
The exhibition Carol is accompanied by a catalogue, which focuses on the Polaroids taken by Paul Black during the period when he worked with Polaroid and it’s creator Dr. Edwin Land. The catalogue includes color reproductions as well as an essay by writer Dave Searcy.
Artist:
Paul James Black was born in Malden, Missouri. His father, Allen Black, introduced Paul to photography at the family newspaper business and by giving him an old Rolliflex medium-format camera.
Paul met Carol at the Kansas City Art Institute. They married in 1966, and three months later Paul was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He signed up for one of the last spots in an Army reserve unit in State College, Pennsylvania; while there, he attented Penn State graduate school to obtain his MFA in painting.
In the spring of his final year, he received a phone call that changed the trajectory of his life. The graduate painting studio had burned, and all of his paintings were lost in the fire. He turned to photography, and his photographs of Carol evolved into his MFA thesis show. After leaving Penn State, Paul taught art in South Renovo, Pennsylvania, and a year later started working at Polaroid in Boston, where he became a Senior Quality Control Engineer. In 1978 Paul relocated his family to Dallas through Polaroid, and in 1982 he opened his own photography business Photographique, which continues to serve the Dallas/Fort Worth area to this day.
Black’s work has been exhibited in many venues such as the Cyclorama at Boston Center for the Arts for Photovision ’72, as well as the Polaroid galleries, 549 Tech Square, and Clarence Kennedy Gallery. Other galleries include the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine; and Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont. One of his photographs, Halloween (Self Portrait),” was awarded Best in Show by Diane Arbus at a group exhibition at Penn State.
This exhibition will mark Black’s first formal exhibition of his photographs in his hometown of Dallas.