Libraries Open New Collection of Photographs Documenting Fayetteville History

The University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections Division has opened the Andrew Kilgore Portfolio (MC 2736) to researchers, making available a newly processed collection of photographs documenting Fayetteville during one of the city's most transformative decades.

The portfolio features 80 black-and-white photographs selected from thousands of negatives taken by acclaimed photographer Andrew Kilgore after he arrived in Fayetteville in 1971. Curated by Kilgore in collaboration with his former studio manager, Joshua LeMasters, and photographer Henry O. Head, the collection captures the people, places and everyday moments that defined Fayetteville before decades of rapid growth transformed Northwest Arkansas.

For more than 50 years, Kilgore captured Arkansas history through portraiture and documentary photography. He is the author of Arkansas People, the subject of the documentary A Lens to the Soul: The Photography of Andrew Kilgore and the recipient of the 2023 Arkansas Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.

"Special Collections is honored to help continue the legacy of the brilliant and beloved photographer, Andrew Kilgore," said Joshua Youngblood, associate dean for Special Collections. "Renowned for his portraits, these images document a dynamic period in Fayetteville history, as a center of the 1970s counterculture movement and just before it began its rapid growth as an economic and educational hub."

LeMasters said assembling the portfolio became much more than an archival project.

"I feel honored to have had the chance to complete this project with Andrew," he said. "What began as preserving a body of photographs gradually became a conversation with Andrew across generations." Over time, he said, the photographs became "a mirror as much as a window," revealing both Fayetteville's history and the enduring ability of photographs to connect people across time.

In his artist's statement, Kilgore describes the portfolio as a glimpse into his beginnings as a photographer, reflecting both his developing artistic vision and the people and places that shaped his life in 1970s Fayetteville.

Katrina Windon, processing archivist for the collection, said the portfolio offers something meaningful to longtime residents and newcomers alike.

"The portfolio blends images that are both highly evocative of their time and place and timeless," Windon said. "Whether you experienced Fayetteville in the 1970s or only more recently, there will be something both new and familiar to experience." She noted that Kilgore and LeMasters carefully distilled thousands of photographs into the final selection of 80 images.

The Andrew Kilgore Portfolio joins the Fayetteville Townfolk Portfolio (MC 1401), an earlier collection of Kilgore's work preserved by the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections Division, expanding access to one of Arkansas' most influential photographers and providing new opportunities to explore the history of Fayetteville through his lens.