Prologue: Eudora Welty Photographs from the Permanent Collection

September 25 – October 31

This exhibition of five photographs by Mississippi writer Eudora Welty serves as an entry to another exhibition honoring Welty, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf as writers.  

Eudora Welty has a special connection to The W, as she attended our institution from 1925 to 1927 before transferring to the University of Wisconsin. Welty’s father, an avid amateur photographer, introduced her to the art form. In 1935, she was employed by the Works Progress Administration as a publicity agent. This job took her around the state, and many of her photographs are from that period of her life.

For a time, photography vied in importance with writing for Welty. In fact, in 1936 she had a solo exhibition of her photographs at the Photographic Galleries at Lugene Opticians, Inc. in New York City just weeks before she published her first short story.

Welty gave up photography in the 1950s when she left her camera on a railroad station bench in Europe.