Door
1973
Digital pigment print
22 x 16"

Coleman’s Cafe
1967
Digital pigment print
16 x 22”

Window
1973
Digital pigment print
22 x 16"

5 Cents — Demopolis, Alabama, from the Portfolio: Ten Southern Photographs
1978
Pigment print mounted on Dibond
42 7/8 x 53"

Palmist Building
1961-1968
Twenty digital pigment prints
8 x 10” each

William Christenberry (1936–2016) was a photographer, painter and sculptor born in Hale County, Alabama, and died in Washington, D.C. He earned both his BFA and MFA from The University of Alabama and taught at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1968.

Whether working in photography, painting, drawing or sculpture, Christenberry’s interest in the themes and traditions of the rural American South translates into simple yet monumental iconography. On both formal and conceptual levels, his work focuses on the prolonged study of a place. For example, in the process of documenting the evolution of a building and its surroundings over time, Christenberry provides a chronicle of that structure’s evolving identity. His work not only captures the essence of a particular region’s heritage, it is also a meditation upon the universal experience of stasis and change.