The Life and Work of Florestine Perrault Collins
Williams Research Center
410 Chartres Street
The Historic New Orleans Collection and the New Orleans Photo Alliance co-present a panel discussion on The Life and Work of Florestine Perrault Collins for the Jules L. Cahn’s Annual John H. Lawrence Photography Lecture at PhotoNOLA.
Born in 1895, Florestine Marguerite Perrault Collins began her photography career at age 14. She was one of the first professional African American female photographers in the country, transforming her parlor into a photography studio to challenge pervasive stereotypes during Jim Crow Era New Orleans.
Collins’s work has been featured in exhibitions such as Women Artists in Louisiana, 1825–1965: A Place of Their Own; a 2012 publication, Picturing Black New Orleans: A Creole Photographer’s View of the Early Twentieth Century, by her great-niece Dr. Arthé A. Anthony; a 2014 documentary, Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People; a 2022 exhibition, Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers (on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art); and the 2022 exhibition First Frame, the preludial exhibition for SEEING BLACK: Black Photography in New Orleans 1840 & Beyond Opens in new tabcurated by Shana M. griffin with Kalamu ya Salaam, Eric Waters, and Girard Mouton,III, which is currently on view at the New Orleans African American Museum.
Moderated by HNOC Reference Associate Jari Honora, our panelists include Dr. Arthé A. Anthony, Shana M. griffin, and Girard Mouton,III.
Explore the Cahn-Lawrence Lecture
The Jules L. Cahn John H. Lawrence Photography Lecture series aims to spotlight fresh voices and perspectives on photography of Louisiana and the Gulf South. Presented annually as part of PhotoNOLA, New Orleans’s citywide photography festival, the lecture series is a tribute to John H. Lawrence, longtime curator of photography and director of museum programs, who retired in 2020.
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