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LEGENDARY BLACK PANTHERS PHOTO ESSAY MAKES LOS ANGELES PREMIERE AFTER 35 YEARS

May 15 - July 23, 2004
Reception: Saturday, May 15, 6 - 8pm
1639 18th Street, Santa Monica

18th Street Arts Center presents "Black Panthers," historical photographs of the movement by Ruth Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, May 15-July 23, 2004 at 18th Street Arts Center, 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica. This exhibition was a 2003 Top 10 Art Pick in The New York Times. The opening reception is Saturday, May 15, 6-8pm, with a slide talk by legendary Black Panther leader and activist Kathleen Cleaver, Sunday, May 16 at 3pm.

"We are proud to present the Los Angeles premiere of these beautiful and historically-significant photos," states 18th Street Co-Executive Director, Clayton Campbell. "It is a prime example of our commitment to high-quality presentation of artistically vital and community-based artwork."

Ruth-Marion Baruch received her MFA in photography from Ohio University. She and Pirkle Jones attended the first photography class held at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, studying with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Homer Page, Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange. Baruch had the inspiration for and facilitated their photo-essay on the Black Panthers. They were married from 1949 until Baruch's death in 1997. Their work has been exhibited at galleries and museums around the country including The Art Institute of Chicago, The De Young Museum in San Francisco, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Amon Carter Museum in Texas, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the International Museum of Photography and the Smithsonian Institution.

Tim Wride joined the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as Assistant Curator of photography in 1994. He has curated 26 permanent collection exhibitions including: Assembled Works (1995); co-curated with Robert Sobieszek P.L.A.N.: Photography Los Angeles Now (1995); Retail Fictions: The Commercial Photography of Ralph Bartholomew, Jr. (1998),
and High Lights, Shadings, and Shadows (1998). Mr. Wride contributed the photography component and essay to Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000 (2000). He curated Shifting Tides: Cuban Photography after the Revolution (2001), shown also in New York and Chicago; Pirkle Jones: Sixty years of Photography (2001), a traveling exhibition premiered at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; To Protect and To Serve: Photography from the LAPD Archives (2002);
and the retrospective of the photographic work of Donald Blumberg (2002).

18th Street programs are supported by the James Irvine Foundation, California Community Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, National Endowmwnt for the Arts, Santa Monica City Cultural Affairs Division, L.A. County Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Foundation, J. Paul Getty Grant Program, and others.

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