William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Palmist Building, 1961–1988, printed 2014, pigmented inkjet print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.111.13.

The Palmist Building is one of the most iconic structures in Christenberry’s extensive body of work. When he was a child, the clapboard building was a general store operated by his great uncle, but it was later home to a palm reader. The inverted hand-painted sign that covers a broken window initially enticed him to photograph the building in 1961.

His earliest photographs pinpoint the sign itself and the peeling whitewash around it. As he became more engrossed in the project, Christenberry carefully examined the relationship of the building to its surroundings, particularly the chinaberry tree that eventually engulfed it.

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Cotton Gin Ruin (View I). Greensboro. Alabama, 2002, printed 2004, dye coupler print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.104

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Green Warehouse (Close View of Rear), Newbern, Alabama, 1988, printed ca. 2001, dye coupler print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.108

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Coleman’s Cafe, 1967–1996, printed 2014, pigmented inkjet print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2014.112.1

Christenberry systematically photographed the same buildings over the course of many years. Once he had accumulated a critical mass, he would arrange the photographs in grids to illustrate the passage of time and the effects of nature on human-made structures. In the exhibition, the grid’s rigid stability stands in contrast to the slow degradation of a roadside shop that succumbed to neglect and eventual collapse once it had outlived its usefulness.

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), 5 Cents, Demopolis, Alabama, 1976, printed 1981, dye imbibition print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Robert Yellowlees, 2014.119.

Christenberry belonged to a generation of artists who, in the late 1950s and early ’60s, challenged the strict divisions between fine art and popular visual culture. Where Andy Warhol appropriated images of mass-produced products and Jasper Johns gesturally rendered common iconography, Christenberry turned to the ubiquitous signage painted on the sides of buildings and posted along rural roads across Hale County. He sought to catalogue the conventions present in corporately issued logos as well as the individual flourishes of hand-painted signs, as on this grocery store.

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Side of Warehouse. Newbern. Alabama, 1980, printed 1987, dye coupler print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Robert Yellowlees, 2014.126.

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), Church, Sprott, Alabama, 1981, printed 2013, pigmented inkjet print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Robert Yellowlees, 2014.136.

William Christenberry (American, 1936–2016), China Grove Church, Hale County, Alabama, 1979, printed 1999, dye coupler print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Robert Yellowlees, 2014.130.

Christenberry was inspired to examine the familiar terrain of his childhood after reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, photographer Walker Evans and writer James Agee’s lyrical study of the lives of Hale County tenant farmers in the throes of the Great Depression.

The book, originally published in 1941, was re-issued in 1960 as Christenberry came of age as an artist. While he was taken with Evans’s direct and rational photographs, it was Agee’s evocative prose that caused him to consider the red clay roads and humble clapboard buildings of rural Alabama as a rich source of creative material.