Geleve Grice Photo Exhibit Tours Arkansas High Schools

The University of Arkansas is sponsoring a Geleve Grice photo exhibit currently touring high schools across the state. The exhibit, on loan from the Old State House, opened Friday, Nov. 18, in Little Rock Central High School.  The University of Arkansas Honors College, the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies and the University of Arkansas libraries are managing the tour.

Geleve Grice, born in 1922 at Tamo, Ark., was the oldest of seven children. He attended Dunbar High School in Little Rock, and during his senior year, he contributed articles and photographs to the Arkansas State Press at the urging of Daisy Bates. Following his WWII service in the U.S. Navy and his graduation in 1950 from Arkansas AM&N, Grice operated a commercial studio in Pine Bluff.  His thousands of photographs include celebrities, historic Arkansas events related to civil rights, and numerous buildings in southeast Arkansas. His most important work chronicles the daily life of African Americans in Pine Bluff.

His work was captured in "Geleve Grice: A Photographer of Note," compiled by Robert Cochran, a UA English professor in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.  In 2003, the Old State House Museum created a large exhibit of Grice’s work to coincide with the publication of the book. Each time the show opens at a new school, Cochran and other University of Arkansas faculty members speak to students about the importance of the photos. At the opening at Little Rock Central, Bob McMath, dean of the Honors College and professor of history, was also on hand to comment on the importance of Grice’s photos to the history of the state and to Little Rock Central in particular.

McMath said,  “Little Rock’s Central High School is both a producer of outstanding graduates who go on to do great things and a symbol of what ordinary people of courage and conviction can accomplish. The Honors College at the University of Arkansas is proud that so many of Central’s outstanding graduates have chosen to join us.  We know that they, and future Central graduates who come our way, will accomplish great things for Arkansas and the world.”