Shelby Lee Adams.
(b. 1950, Kentucky & Massachusetts)
Leddie and Children, Sloan Mountain, Kentucky.
1990.
Signed, titled, dated and numbered # 23/25 in pencil verso.
Silver gelatin print is 20"w x 16"h.
Archival frame is 29"w x 25"h.
Excellent condition.
Illustrated: Shelby Lee Adams, Appalachian Portraits, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 1993.
Illustrated on page 57 and on the book's dust jacket cover.
Provenance: Estate of Dr. Gay Culverhouse (1947-2020), former President of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and author.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $4,000-$6,000.
Ship: $75

Shelby Lee Adams was born and raised in a holler in Eastern Kentucky in 1950 and lived and grew up in the middle part of Johnson's Fork, in Letcher County, Kentucky. As a youngster, he accompanied and assisted one of his uncles, a family doctor, on home visits throughout the region. In high school Adams was passionate about art, and attended the Cleveland Institute of Art. He didn't develop an interest in photography until taking a photography course in his second year there. Commenting on his work in an essay he wrote ten years ago, Adams said: "I'm not a documentarian per se. My work is autobiographical, people-oriented, personal and subjective, with humanistic and artistic concerns. I've never said I was a documentary photographer…I am continually searching through my roots."

For five decades Adams has recorded generations of Appalachian families—births, deaths, marriages, celebrations—as only an insider could. His images are raw, compassionate, and true, if not always spontaneous. Using a large format camera and lights, as necessary, in his work, Adams is more concerned with creating art than capturing a moment.

In the photograph offered here, Leddie and Children.
also called Leddie with Children), Leddie Sloan and her nine grandchildren have gathered on her porch for a family portrait. This was clearly a planned event—Leddie has even gone to the trouble of ironing her jeans for the photo. It is summer. Three of the grandkids are shirtless and the trees in the background are lush with foliage. The children seem to be doing everything in their power to get the photographer's attention: one boy holds onto a rafter, another boy leans back precariously from a porch post, and the girl second from left looks really upset about something. Perhaps she wanted to be the one hanging on to the porch post in the foreground like the lucky girl to her left. But the anchor of the photo is Leddie, who exudes strength and confidence as she holds her youngest grandchild in her lap. She is clearly proud of, and close to, her grandchildren.

Leddie and Children is one of Shelby Lee Adams' best, and best known, images from his first book, Appalachian Portraits.Most of the prints from this edition, which has been sold out for decades, are in museum collections, including: The International Center of Photography, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, IL; and Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Boston, MA, to name a few.