Stockton/This image is from Whitfield Lovell's installation Deep River' at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, in 2023.
Julie McGee
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - The annual Al Gold Memorial Lecture Series will return to Stockton University's Campus Center Theatre March 19 with a presentation by Julie L. McGee titled Whitfield Lovell: Deep River. The lecture begins at 2:30 p.m. and is followed by a reception.
The lecture series is named after Al Gold, who was appointed Atlantic City's first chief photographer in 1939, a post he held until his death in 1964. His career in photography began in 1921 when he photographed the first Miss America pageant. The Al Gold Memorial Purchase Award is given to two Stockton University photography students annually. His daughter Vicki Gold Levi is a picture editor and co-author of Atlantic City: 125 Years of Ocean Madness. Before McGee's lecture, Gold Levi will present an introduction on African American Portraiture in Atlantic City.
McGee is an associate professor of Africana Studies and Art History and the director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center at the University of Delaware. She will talk about Lovell's installation and book, Deep River, which pays homage to histories and spirits of Camp Contraband, a Union Army site near Chattanooga on the Tennessee River that served freedom seekers and fugitives from slavery in the Confederate South. Lovell is internationally renowned for his installations that feature Conté crayon drawings inspired by vintage photography. He also often pairs his subjects with found objects.
Ian Marshall, Stockton dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, will give opening remarks along with Wendel A. White, distinguished professor of Art.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Visual Arts faculty in the School of Arts and Humanities. For more information go to stockton.edu/artgallery.
