Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
American, born 1946
Hip Hop, Galveston, Texas
INV-1471
Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
American, born 19461996
Hip Hop, Galveston, Texas
Earlie Hudnall, Jr. American, born 1946 →gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) prphotographic process
Date
1996
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 48 × 38.1 cm (18 15/16 × 15 in.); Paper: 50.6 × 40.6 cm (19 15/16 × 16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Comer Foundation Fund
A Mississippi native, Earlie Hudnall was inspired by his grandmother, the keeper of the family scrapbook, and his father, an amateur photographer. Hudnall began taking pictures while in the Marine Corps in the 1960s, and after serving in Vietnam he moved to Houston to study art at Texas Southern University, eventually becoming the school’s official photographer. Hudnall immersed himself in Houston’s Third Ward community, producing a wide-ranging record of African American life there and throughout the South. He became especially adept at making photographs of people on the street, documenting his subjects with dignity and respect. In this striking portrait, a young boy poses like an adult, borrowing exaggerated signs of hip-hop status to project a mature identity even as his youth remains apparent.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
![And a Special Fear for My Loved Ones, from The Black Woman [formerly The Negro Woman] (published 1946-47)](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/431acafc-2f01-28f1-dbfc-2259708271a7/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
