 |
 |
THE BOLD TEXT ON THE SIGN read like any other that someone might pass on a stroll down Main Street USA: “GRICE STUDIO, ROOM 9 UPSTAIRS, AIR CONDITIONED, ROLL FILM DEVELOPED, WEDDINGS, PORTRAITURE, GROUPS, NATURAL COLORS.” This simple and unassuming sign on Geleve Grice’s photography studio was an understatement of the rich talents this man possessed.
|
| |
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Robert Frost
|
The archived virtual exhibit tiled, "A Photographer of Note: Arkansas Artist Geleve Grice" takes you through the life and career of one of the prominent Arkansas photographers from the 20th century. Geleve Grice's work was is an important contribution to Arkansas black history that can be experience online.
Geleve Grice was born in Tamo in 1922, but his interest in photography dates from his teenage years in Little Rock. Before he graduated from Dunbar High School in 1942, Daisy Bates had arranged for his first published pictures to appear in the ARKANSAS STATE PRESS. As a university student at Arkansas AM&N in Pine Bluff, his work for the student yearbook was impressive enough to get him hired by Art Department Chair John Howard as the school's staff photographer.
For more than thirty years, Grice operated a commercial studio in Pine Bluff, where his vocation took him to thousands of weddings, proms, graduations, funerals, parades, music recitals, advertisements, athletic events, beauty contests, and concerts. In the days of segregated school systems, he traveled the state with a set of graduation gowns making class pictures for hundreds of students.
Meanwhile, on his own time, his avocational love of photography led him to make thousands of images for no commercial motives. He took pictures of abandoned buildings, old farm equipment, vegetables from his garden, men drinking beer and little girls showing off their Sunday clothes. In a half century of diligent work that combined his business with his pleasure, Geleve Grice, truly "a photographer of note," has assembled a rare and rich portrait of Arkansas life. Mr. Grice passed away in August of 2004.
The life and work of Geleve Grice and other notable Arkansas photographers can be enjoyed online, thanks to the Old State House Museum's virtual exhibits.
Also learn about Arkansas photography at the exhibit titled Ernie Deane's Arkansas Photographs.
This document is made available in *.PDF format. In order to read *.PDF documents, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If you do not have the Reader installed, you may download it FREE.
For more on black history, see the Fall 1989 issue of the Arkansas News.
Buy the book of Mr. Grice's photographs online.
|
