The Southampton African American Museum (SAAM) presents a solo exhibition by photographer John Pinderhughes entitled “My Love of Our Community.”
John Pinderhughes is one of a small group of successful African American photographers working today, SAAM says in the exhibit notes. A commercial photographer in New York City for the past 30 years, he has operated his full-service studio for 25 years.
“My Love of Our Community” runs from July 17 to September 10 at SAAM, 245 North Sea Road in Southampton, with timed entries every half-hour from Friday to Sunday, 11 AM to 3 PM.
An opening reception with the artist is Saturday, July 16, from 6 to 8 PM. Tickets are $50 per person. Purchase reception tickets, or reserve your timed entry for exhibition tours on the SAAM website, saamuseum.org.
John Pinderhuges exhibition
New York-based Pinderhughes has combined careers in advertising and fine art photography. His commercial work includes advertising campaigns for major corporations while his fine art has developed separately. He is known for expansive landscapes and pictures that explore the relationship between people and their environment, traditions, and points of view.
Although he describes himself as “primarily self-taught,” his photographs display a deep understanding of light, shape, and form. His work has been exhibited at many galleries, including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, and has appeared in several books, including Barbara Millstein’s “Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers” (2001).
In addition, he has published several books, including cookbooks and children’s books.
Born in 1946 in Washington, DC, he grew up in Alabama and New Jersey, where he attended Montclair High School before attending Howard University to major in marketing. Although he attended from 1964 to 1968, Pinderhughes did not complete his degree, dropping out in his senior year to take up photography. He later attended the WNET Film and Television Training School in 1971 and 1972.
Other ongoing exhibits at SAAM
And while you’re at SAAM, check out these ongoing exhibits:
Grooming a Generation
Upstairs at SAAM, visit “Grooming a Generation,” a history of Black barbershops and beauty parlors. This exhibit highlights the experiences that led Emanuel Seymore to build his establishment, which now houses SAAM, and how barbershops and beauty parlors became a natural gathering place to stay connected to culture and ideas.
Digital Tapestry
A $125,000 grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation funds the new Digital Tapestry installation.
Accessible onsite using a smartphone, the installation supports SAAM’s mission to promote an understanding and appreciation of African American culture through programs that preserve the past, encourage learning, and enhance the community’s life.
The technology works off an actual tapestry that is one of the centerpieces of the SAAM, a work of art created by David Bunn Martine of the Shinnecock Nation. It depicts various scenes representative of Black history in Southampton.
The Digital Tapestry uses animation to recreate Pyrrhus Concer, who began his life enslaved, became a skilled steerer on the whaling ship Manhattan, was the first Black man to visit Japan, and distinguished himself as a landowner and philanthropist in Southampton.
The narrative includes images of African Americans who left their homes in the South in droves to work on farms in the North — including on eastern Long Island — as part of the Great Migration of the middle of the 20th century. It also has depictions of juke joints and Randy’s Barber Shop, housed where the museum now stands in Southampton Village.
