Fordham University is pleased to announce Melvin Hollins: The Observer, a photography exhibition taking place simultaneously in the Ildiko Butler Gallery and the Susan Lipani Gallery at Lincoln Center. The accompanying book, Melvin Hollins: The Observer, is available on our imprint, Hayden's Books, as a 298-page, 5" x 8" print-on-demand publication with an introduction by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and an essay by Jude Hollins.

Melvin Hollins was an African-American armed forces veteran, a Fordham University Lincoln Center Ram, and a gifted street photographer who compassionately recorded the social fabric of New York throughout the 1970s. This exhibition presents 18 framed archival prints made from scanned B&W negatives in the Ildiko Butler Gallery, and 133 5" x 8" pages from the book Melvin Hollins: The Observer, encircling the entire Susan Lipani Gallery in the Visual Arts Complex.

For over two years, curator Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock worked with Melvin Hollins' son, Jude Hollins, to edit down 2,600 images for this exhibition and book. The images span the geography of New York City and the diverse cultures that call it home. Hollins' photographs range from direct portraits to candid impressions made from afar, and to images that record the quotidian details of everyday life in New York—buildings, streets, parades, contests, marches, playgrounds, and beyond. Melvin Hollins was a visual omnivore, interested in learning about everything happening in our city through photography.

Melvin Hollins' photographs clearly reflect his studies at Fordham in art, history, sociology, philosophy, and psychology. He conscientiously explored themes of race, pride, innocence, alienation, class, and social structures; however, despite the gravity of his topics, his imagery is subtle and joyous, never dogmatic. Regardless of what Melvin Hollins pointed his camera at, his photographs are marked by attentiveness to form and suffused with empathy and kindness. In particular, his images of children are extraordinary for the complexity and range of emotions they depict.

The title of the exhibition and book, Melvin Hollins: The Observer, is both a description of Melvin's photographic practice and a nod to our outstanding student newspaper, The Observer, whose photographs demonstrate extraordinary documentary reportage, as did Melvin's. Lastly, but significantly, the color theme for this exhibition is based on the 1970s New York license plate and subway signage—and yes, that is Denzel Washington as a student on stage in the Pope Auditorium.

An exhibition talk on Tuesday, October 20th, 6 pm, will include Jude Hollins and Fordham photography professors Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, Patrice Helmar, Joseph Lawton, Anibal Pella-Woo, and Dan Wilner.

This exhibition was installed by Gallery Programmer Vincent Stracquadanio and is a collaboration between the Visual Arts Program, the Theatre Program, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, the Office of the Dean, and the Estate of Melvin Hollins.

Preview the book here Melvin Hollins: The Observer

This book brings together over three years of exhibitions and programming at Fordham University’s Ildiko Butler Gallery, as well as examples of photographs produced by eleven Fordham University student recipients of the Ildiko Butler Travel Award.

Located at the entrance of Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, the Ildiko Butler Gallery provides one of the first impressions to visitors and offers diverse programming year-round for students, faculty, and staff to enjoy. Since our inaugural photography exhibition, we have mounted thirty-one exhibitions in the gallery and it has served as the site for numerous university social functions. Further, the gallery has provided an extraordinary educational tool for students and faculty alike.

The Ildiko Butler Travel Award has enabled students to travel the world from Rome to Havana, Berlin to Budapest, and even from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. In each and every case the travel opportunity afforded by the award has been educational and transformative for the students. The photographs generated while traveling often become the core of a student’s senior thesis exhibition.