Willie Williams Remembers Unsung Heroes

On February 19, William Earle Williams celebrated the opening of his exhibition Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in Durham, NC. We are celebrating as well. This is an exhibition Light Work curated two years ago. Laura Guth, who curated the exhibition for us, describes in her essay that “there is a notable absence of a comprehensive record to commemorate and honor the contribution of the more than 180,000 African American soldiers who […] ultimately shaped the outcome of a Union victory in the American Civil War. This […] is the driving force for Williams’s work. […] Just as monuments symbolize an imperative to remember, Williams’s photographs serve to restore forgotten or unmaintained sites to our national memory.”

Since the initial exhibition at Light Work, the exhibition has traveled to many venues, including the Emily Davis Gallery at the University of Akron in Akron, OH; the Cantor-Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College in Haverford, PA; the Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY; and the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY. The exhibition will remain on view at the Center for Documentary Studies through April 19. After this it will travel to the Art Gallery at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Pomona, NJ.

While the exhibition catalogue, Contact Sheet 140, is available through the Light Work store, the artist also has produced two special limited editions of the catalogue. The Special Bound Edition is set in a black metal spiral bound that allows publication to open flat unlike the soft-cover, perfect-bound edition. It is protected with clear acetate dust wrappers. This edition is limited to 50 signed copies and costs $25. The Limited Print Edition includes a signed silver gelatin print and comes in a brown cloth slipcase with 22-karat gold leaf title embossed in brown leather on spine. The print edition is limited to 30 signed copies and costs $450. Both items are available directly from the artist. Special Edition Details

Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War
February 19 – April 19, 2009

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
1317 W. Pettigrew Street
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 660-3663