Chopping Cotton in the Fields, Warren County, Mississippi, 1935

The MTSU Department of Art will host an exhibition of photography by Eudora Welty through March 9 at Todd Art Gallery, Todd Hall, room 224A.

Eudora Welty was an American writer and photographer whose main focus was on the American South. Born in 1909, Welty grew up in Mississippi and went on to become a teacher, writer and photographer.

The pieces of this collection come to MTSU from the Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA), where David Lovett, of Knoxville, donated them in 1991.

These 20 black-and-white prints from the KMA’s permanent collection represent some of Welty’s most striking Depression-era images. She took the photographs during her assignment with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). She took some of the photographs in Mississippi during the 1930s, images that showcase the pervasive poverty of the South and economically disenfranchised persons—both people of color and poor whites. These were assembled in a special limited edition portfolio that was published by the Palaemon Press in 1980.

Welty’s highly acclaimed photographs first drew national attention with the 1971 publication of One Time, One Place. This was a collection of the photographs that laid the foundation of her works, similar to the ones being displayed in the Todd Art Gallery. After this publication, she was invited to lecture at the Museum of Modern Art on her photography. Welty later gained more fame, this time as a writer, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for The Optimist’s Daughter.

The exhibition is free and open to all ages of the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. For more information, call 615-898-5532.