Content area
Full Text
During the Roaring '20s, while the nation kicked up its heels to a dance named for the city of Charleston, a black couple struggled to create art in the Southern seaport during the Jim Crow era.
Artist Edwin A. Harleston and his photographer wife, Elise, operated the Harleston Studio on Calhoun Street from 1922 to 1931. At the same time, they worked in his father's funeral home, reared two children and devoted themselves to their church and their community.
Despite the demands on their time, the couple left a body of work that depicts black life during the early 20th century.
Edwin Harleston gained a reputation during his lifetime as the nation's premier African-American portrait painter. His paintings are on view at the Avery Research Center of the College of Charleston.
Elise Harleston's photographs, however, rarely have been exhibited or published. One of them is part of the Avery exhibition.
Now, nearly two dozen of her glass-plate negatives have come to light after being tucked away decades ago.
Photo historian Harvey S. Teal, author of "Partners With the Sun: South Carolina Photographers, 1840-1940," believes the newly uncovered cache is historically important.
"Her images are not plentiful by any means," he said. "Any group of photos of Elise Harleston's that's discovered is significant because there's just not a great body of them around."
Many of the images are of Elise's family members, including the two nieces she reared, but the subjects of the photos in today's Post and Courier are unknown. They are typical of black middle- class...