Wendel A. White
Wendel A. White is a photographer and educator who has, for several decades, investigated the complex narratives held within landscapes, objects, and communities. White looks at the often-disconnected histories of Black life and how the ghosts of the past permeate present-day America. His in-depth photographic inquiries are exemplified in three significant bodies of work, Small Towns, Black Lives (1989–2002), Schools for the Colored (2002–2010), and Manifest (2009–present).
Watch
"Wendel A. White: Schools for the Colored," from State of the Arts, NJ
Selected Work
Exhibitions
Wendel A. White: “Schools for the Colored” & “Manifest”
April 5 – June 14, 2025
Artist News
AWARD
First Place in Books: New England Museum Association
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Wendel A. White: Manifest | Thirteen Colonies
EXHIBITION
Diverse Perspectives in Photography: Four Black Guggenheim Fellows in the Philadelphia Region: Ron Tarver, William E. Williams, Wendel A. White, Don E. Camp
Stockton University Art Gallery, Galloway, NJ
September 4 – November 8, 2025
EXHIBITION
Reflections in Black: A Reframing
Curated by Dr. Deborah Willis
Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Photography & Imaging, New York, NY
Gulf & Western Galleries: September 4 – December 21, 2025
Cooper Square Gallery: September 4 – October 15, 2025
EXHIBITION
Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory
September 6 – December 7, 2025 (traveling)
This exhibition presents contemporary art inspired by historical events, creating a framework in which to honor and contemplate the ongoing fight for freedom and equality in Black America. Working in a range of mediums including photography, video, projection and mixed media, the artists featured in this exhibition address questions of private and public memory as it relates to racism, segregation and slavery.
SOLO EXHIBITION
Wendel A. White:
Schools for the Colored
SFO Museum, Terminal 2
Departures Level 2, Gallery 2E
Nov 12, 2024 – Nov 30, 2025
Wendel A. White’s photographic project, Schools for the Colored, delves into the legacy of racial segregation in America’s educational system. The series is an extension of White’s earlier work, Small Towns, Black Lives, and continues his exploration of the African American landscape.
PRESS
“Wendel A. White”
Art Forum
By Maria Porges
September, 2025
“Over the course of several decades and across multiple bodies of work, Wendel A. White has dedicated himself to exploring how the concept of race has been constructed in the United States by recording and transforming its material traces.”
PRESS
Wendel A. White: “Schools for the Colored”
Square Cylinder
By Theodore (Ted) Barrow
May 12, 2025
“…this assembly of 14 pigment-printed digital photographs depicting formerly segregated schools trembles with freighted tension, oscillating between the distant past and an ominous future.”
