Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture has announced its newest exhibition, Jazz Greats: Classic Photographs from the Bank of America Collection, which will be on display from November 7, 2025, to April 26, 2026.
Read on to learn about the exhibition, as well as about the FREE opening celebration.
The Gantt Center is at 551 S Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jazz Greats: Classic Photographs from the Bank of America Collection
The images gathered in Jazz Greats: Classic Photographs from the Bank of America Collection offer an overview of music and movement captured with professional accuracy and acumen. This selection of black-and-white prints spans three generations and speaks to the histories of individuals and occurrences, in front of and behind the camera.
Jazz is historically in the forefront of African American music for its honesty, sensuality, and improvisational vigor. Chuck Stewart’s portraits of iconic saxophone players Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane capture sensitive and sobering moments off stage. A contemplative mood permeates Ed (Eduard) van der Elsken’s dark 1958 portrait of Louis Armstrong in formal attire, his trumpet lowered, taken during his performance at the Newport Jazz Festival that year.
The exhibition features 33 photographs by fifteen photographers, spanning primarily from the 1920s to the 1980s, and depicts artists from various genres in music and dance. Many are legends of the uniquely American art forms of jazz and modern dance; some are simply members of local communities entertaining their neighbors.
Gantt Center
Artists in this exhibition
- Michael L. Abramson (American, 1948-2011)
- Antony Armstrong Jones (British, 1930-2017)
- Jonas Dovydenas (American, b. Lithuania, 1939)
- Eduard (Ed) Van Der Elsken (Dutch, 1925-1990)
- Arthur H. Fellig (Weegee) (American, b. Austria, 1899-1968)
- William Gottlieb (American, 1917–2006)
- Milton J. Hinton (American, 1910–2000)
- Gjon Mili (American, b. Albania, 1904–1984)
- Lisette Model (American, b. Austria, 1901–1983)
- Barbara Morgan (American, 1900–1992)
- Gordon Parks (American, 1912–2006)
- Marc Pokempner (American, b. 1948)
- Aaron Siskind (American 1903–1991)
- Edward Steichen (American, b. Luxembourg, 1879–1973)
- Chuck Stewart (American, 1927–2017)
Opening Celebration
The exhibition will be unveiled to the public, with an opening celebration on Friday, November 7, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The opening celebration is FREE. Please RSVP here.
It features:
- A performance by Braxton Bateman, jazz musician
- 7:00 p.m.: Panel discussion featuring Jennifer Brown, Curator, Bank of America and Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D., James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies, Duke University
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Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture
551 South Tryon Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
704-547-3700
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