Baldwin Lee
In 1983, Baldwin Lee left his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his 4 × 5 view camera and set out on the first of a series of road trips to photograph the American South. The subject of his pictures were Black Americans: at home, at work, and at play,
in the street, and among nature. This project would consume Lee—a first-generation Chinese American—for the remainder of that decade, and it would forever transform his perception of his country, its people, and himself.
"Baldwin’s work is amongst the most moving work of its time. I am sorry to have been so ignorant to have not known of it. Blessed to know it now…"
- Judith Joy Ross
The resulting archive from this seven-year period contains nearly ten thousand black-and-white negatives.
"I suspect that few are aware of the accomplishments of Baldwin Lee, who, photographing in the South 30 years ago, produced a body of work that is among the most remarkable in American photography of the past half century."
- Mark Steinmetz, Time Magazine
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