Havana Methodist Church, Havana, Alabama, 1976

"It is the genius of William Christenberry to stir up intensely evocative emotions and meanings from common, even humble, pieces of the world." —Howard N. Fox, curator of modern and contemporary art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has plumbed the regional identity of the American South, focusing his attention on Hale County, Alabama, from which he hails. His theme is singular: the history, the very story of place, is at the heart of his project. His poetic documentation of Southern vernacular architecture, signage, and landscape captures moments of quiet beauty in a sometimes rustic terrain that, with its worn iconography and buildings turned ramshackle, evokes the power of the passage of time. Havana Methodist Church, Havana, Alabama, 1976, is part of a previously unseen body of Christenberry's work: a group of 35 mm Kodachromes, developed in 2006, some thirty years after they were taken, and is included in William Christenberry (Aperture, 2006). The Havana Methodist Church, which still stands, was built during the Civil War and is where Christenberry's paternal grandparents are buried. The artist laments the fact that the wonderful country churches of his youth are disappearing and are being replaced by dreary cinderblock structures. This image of a whitewashed church is simple, almost faceless, but representative of a fading part of the rural landscape; it evinces Walker Percy's description of Christenberry's work as a "poetic evocation of a haunted countryside."

Digital Pigment Print
Paper Size: 11 x 14 inches
Image Size: 6 5/8 x 10 inches
Edition of 40 and 4 Artist’s Proofs
Signed and numbered by the artist

William Christenberry (b. 1936, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; d. 2016, Washington, D.C.) drew artistic inspiration from his youth in Hale County, Alabama. He received a BFA in 1958 and an MFA in 1959 from the University of Alabama, studying under noted abstract expressionist Melville Price. In 1968, he began teaching at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. Though he was better known as a photographer and multi-media artist, Christenberry taught painting. Christenberry’s work concentrated on architectural structures, nature, and the effects of place and memory. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows worldwide and is the subject of several monographs.