Charles "Teenie" Harris (July 2, 1908–June 12, 1998) was an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in othe ...

from

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

. Harris was known for his photographs of residents and prominent visitors to Pittsburgh, including musicians and baseball players, which often appeared in the ''

Pittsburgh Courier The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States. It was acqu ...

''. His work is preserved in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum as a chronicle of mid-20th century life in Pittsburgh's African American communities.

Biography

Harris was born in 1908 in

, USA, the son of hotel owners in the city's

Hill District The Hill District is a grouping of historically African American neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, "the Hill" was the cultural center of black life in the city and a major cent ...

. Early in the 1930s he purchased his first camera and opened a photography studio. He freelanced for the Washington, D.C. news picture magazine '' Flash!''. From 1936 to 1975 Harris chronicled life in the black neighborhoods of the city for the ''

'' one of America's oldest black newspapers. Harris was nicknamed "One Shot" because he rarely made his subjects sit for retakes. Harris took more than 80,000 images during his career. In addition to his photo essays of daily life in the city, he captured many celebrities who visited Pittsburgh, including

Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an internat ...

Erroll Garner Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first rec ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

, Little Richard and

Ray Charles Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...

. Harris also photographed legendary

Negro league baseball The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

players of the

Homestead Grays The Homestead Grays (also known as Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays) were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and remained in continuou ...

and

Pittsburgh Crawfords The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team, previously known as the Crawford Colored Giants, was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recrea ...

. Harris himself played baseball for the Crawfords when they were known as the Crawford Colored Giants. In 1986 he licensed his collection of photographs for $3000 to a local entrepreneur, Dennis Morgan. Subsequently these so-called "Morgan prints" were sold at street fairs in Pittsburgh. Harris filed a lawsuit in 1998 for unpaid royalties and the return of his collection. He won the case posthumously. Harris died in 1998.

Legacy

Harris' work was rarely seen outside of Pittsburgh until after his death. In 2001, the

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburg ...

purchased Harris' collection of 80,000 negatives from his estate. Since 2003, the museum has scanned and cataloged nearly 60,000 images, many of which are available on the online collection database. Through outreach efforts, lectures and special events, and three Teenie Harris Archive Project exhibitions (in 2003, 2006, and 2009), the museum has asked for assistance in identifying the people, places, and events in the images. The Museum staged a retrospective of his work in 2012, and in 2020, opened a dedicated permanent exhibition of Harris' photographs titled ''In Sharp Focus: Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris''.

Books

References

External links

"One Shot: the Life and Work of Teenie Harris"Teenie Harris Archive at the Carnegie Museum of ArtEpisode 2 of the 2022 PBS documentary series ''Making Black America''
(segment about Charles Harris starts at 37:13) {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Charles 1908 births 1998 deaths Artists from Pittsburgh 20th-century American photographers African-American photographers Negro league baseball People associated with the Carnegie Museum of Art American photojournalists 20th-century African-American artists Burials at Homewood Cemetery

Biography

Legacy

Books

See also

References

External links