This is the remarkable story of Oraien Catledge. Catledge was born in Mississippi in the 1920’s and has lived in Atlanta for more than forty years. At the age of 51 and with a severe visual handicap, Catledge taught himself photography . Over the next two decades, Catledge created empathic black and white portraits of the working people of Cabbagetown, a former mill village made up of 10 narrow streets and shotgun houses, located in Atlanta’s urban city center.
The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill opened in 1881 and employed Appalachians from North Georgia. After the firm’s closing in 1977, the mill-workers and their families were left to make ends meet any way they could at a time when Atlanta’s in-town neighborhoods were being abandoned for the suburbs. Catledge, a trained social worker, began photographing this close-knit Cabbagetown community in 1980 and made nearly weekly visits for the next twenty years. He always returned to pass out his silver gelatin prints to those he had photographed the week before. The “Picture Man,” as Catledge was known among his subjects, photographed instinctively and “broke all the rules.” He lacked visual acuity (the result of a childhood bout with malaria). His visual impairment and use of a 50 mm lens demanded he get close to his subjects. The images he produced are stark (sometimes hard-edged), respectful, and, as he says, contain “no make believe.” The people of the hard-working borough opened up to him, resulting in an impressive collection of photographs of everyday life.
In 2011, he was honored with the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for his photography. Photographer Mary Ellen Mark noted at that time, “Oraien Catledge surely loves what he does and loves the people he photographs. He sees all humanity in his own clear, honest and beautiful way”.
Oraien Catledge – Cabbagetown
On view through May 26
Robert Anderson Gallery
24 West 57th Street, Suite 503
New York, NY 10015
