A little girl stares boldly at the camera, her head framed in a large white bow, her white dress adorned with rows of ruffles. She sits with a floral bouquet on her lap, a visual reference to her blossoming future.
A fresh-faced soldier in the uniform of World War I, his lower legs wrapped in puttees to seal the gap between his trousers and boots, stares at the photographer rather apprehensively. Is it the fixed formality of having one’s portrait taken that so disarms him or can we read in his solemn stare anxiety about what military life might have in store?
A fashionable young woman stands confidently before the viewer, her hands on her hips, her face beaming with joy. She’s dressed in flapper garb. Her skirt is short, her head is covered with a snug, bell-like hat called a cloche. She is the epitome of self-possession and female independence.
These are just three of the photographic prints that are part of the Richard Samuel Roberts exhibition now on view at the Columbia Museum of Art. Just as compelling as the images on display is the life story of the man who made them.
A custodian at the downtown post office, Roberts (1880-1936) worked in his off hours as a photographer in a studio he rented on Arsenal Hill in our state’s capital city. Entirely self-taught, he served the Black community in the 1920s and ’30s, perfecting the art of portraiture.
In one of his advertisements, Roberts declared, “No other gift causes so much real and lasting joy as the gift of your photograph.” The images that he left behind — approximately 3,000 glass plate negatives were retrieved from under the family home in 1977 — chronicle the varied lives of the emerging African American middle class during a transformative time in our nation’s history.
There are images of teachers, nurses, preachers and musicians. There are graduation pictures and wedding portraits. There are individuals posed in front of their homes or next to their automobiles.
The exhibition on the second floor of the Columbia Museum of Art runs until Feb. 21, 2027, but the photographs on display will rotate during that period, so one never knows which images will be on view.
For a fuller appreciation of Roberts and his masterful achievement, one would do well to consult a copy of one of the books devoted to his life and work. I recommend “A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts,” published by USC Press in 2019. Also available online are a host of images in the Digital Collections of the University of South Carolina Libraries.