Pictures Tell The Story: Ernest C. Withers

Do you know the photography of Ernest Withers? When I hear his name, I think of Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr., Emmett Till, and musicians like Ike and Tina Turner, Howlin' Wolf, Aretha, James Cotton, and on and on. We saw his photos in Memphis, and later, we bought a book of his music photos up here in Toronto. More recently, we approached Steven Bulger Gallery with a list of vintage Withers works. We had this idea that maybe prints were still available, and maybe we could afford them..... It turned out that many of the vintage shots were still available, prints signed by Mr. Withers, who is still living in Memphis. We ended up purchasing two 11X14 prints - and they just got back from our framers today (not being able to afford them hardly slowed us down). One of the prints is The Howlin' Wolf Band, including a very young James Cotton, pretending to pick cotton in a field somewhere in Arkansas. The other print depicts the Staple Singers, on the balcony of the hotel where Dr. King was killed. It is chilling. He took so many amazing shots. Other links to his work can be found here and here.