The Photography of Harold Baquet
December 6, 2026
Lecture and panel discussion: 1 p.m.
Community photo reception: 2–3:30 p.m.
Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street
Registration opens November 2
Free admission, registration required
Join internationally renowned photography scholar, artist, and curator Dr. Deborah Willis for a special program celebrating the life, work, and legacy of New Orleans photographer Harold Baquet. Willis will open the program by placing Baquet’s work within the broader history of Black photography in America and exploring the power of photography to document community, identity, and history.
Baquet spent decades documenting New Orleans, creating an extraordinary visual record of the city’s Black political, cultural, and community life. His photographs capture both pivotal public moments and the people whose everyday lives shaped the city. The Historic New Orleans Collection is proud to steward Baquet’s photographic collection, preserve his work, and make it accessible to the community.
Following Willis’s presentation, moderator Lynette Johnson will lead a discussion with Baquet’s wife, Cheron Brylski, and his friend and fellow photographer Keith Calhoun. The panel will explore Baquet’s career, his approach to documenting New Orleans, and the neighborhoods, institutions, events and individuals that appear throughout his work.
Community Photo Reception
The program will conclude with a reception and community photo identification session featuring selections from the Harold Baquet Collection. Over wine and light refreshments, guests will be invited to view photographs containing unidentified subjects and share their knowledge, memories, and stories. Together, participants can help HNOC put names to the New Orleanians that Baquet photographed and preserve more of the history captured through his lens.
Speakers & Partners
Deborah Willis, PhD
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Deborah Willis, PhD
Deborah Willis, PhD, is professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU). She has affiliated NYU appointments with the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Fine Arts, where she teaches courses on photography and imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the Black body, women, and gender. She is also the director of NYU's Institute for African American Affairs and Center for Black Visual Culture.
Her research examines the multifaceted histories of photography, visual culture, contemporary women photographers, and beauty. She received a MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow; and an Alphonse Fletcher Jr. Fellow. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the College Art Association’s award for Writing Art History (2021) and the Royal Photographic Society’s award for Outstanding Service.
She has pursued a dual career as an art photographer and as a curator of African diasporic cultures, becoming one of the nation's leading historians of African American photography. Willis is the author of Reflections in Black: A Reframing 1840 to the Present; The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship; Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present; Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty; Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present; Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits; Family History Memory: Photographs by Deborah Willis; VanDerZee: Photographer, 1886-1983; and co-author of The Black Female Body: A Photographic History with Carla Williams; Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery with Barbara Krauthamer; and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs. The latter two titles were NAACP Image Award winners.
PhotoNOLA
PhotoNOLA
PhotoNOLA is an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries, and alternative venues citywide. Showcasing work by photographers near and far, the festival includes exhibitions, workshops, lectures, a portfolio review, gala and more. PhotoNOLA draws hundreds of photography professionals to the city to partake in a variety of educational programs, and reaches broadly into the local community with exhibitions and events that are largely free and open to the public.
PhotoNOLA’s broad range of programming connects and inspires our community through photography. Each December, New Orleans shines as a prime destination for photography collectors, enthusiasts, and professionals in the field.
Support
The Jules L. Cahn John H. Lawrence Photography Lecture is presented with the support of The Cahn Family Foundation in conjunction with the annual PhotoNOLA festival, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance.
Jules L. Cahn John H. Lawrence Photography Lecture
HNOC’s annual lecture presented as part of the PhotoNOLA photography festival
Related Stories
The Intimate Eye of George Dureau
Prospect.5 spotlights the New Orleans photographer’s “othered” portraits.
The 19th-Century Family Found in an Attic
When one New Orleans couple unsealed the attic of their Algiers house, they discovered a remarkable set of family portraits going back 135 years.
Related Collection Highlights
Clarence John Laughlin Archive
Through his dreamlike black-and-white images, the surrealist Louisiana photographer explored, amplified, and commented on the mystique of the South.
Pops Whitesell Photographs
The artist was an important figure in the French Quarter Renaissance, an effort by artists, authors, and architects to preserve and reinvigorate life in the historic neighborhood.
Braughn Family Photomontage
A dramatic composite photograph depicts a prominent New Orleans family in high style.
Related Virtual Exhibitions
From Daguerreotype to Digital
A look at over 20 different photographic processes and techniques represented in HNOC’s holdings, from the daguerreotype to the digital prints of today.
Enigmatic Stream: Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi River
Photographs by Richard Sexton capture the essence of a complicated, often mysterious section of the country’s largest waterway.
Related Books
Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere
by Richard Sexton
with essays by Jay D. Edwards and John H. Lawrence
Louisiana Lens: Photographs from the Historic New Orleans Collection
by John H. Lawrence
with a foreword by Jeff L. Rosenheim
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
