Prentice Polk was a photographer known for his portraits of African Americans.
Background
Prentice Polk was born in 1898 on November 25, 1898, in Bessemer, Alabama, United States. One of four children of Jacob Prentice Polk and Christine Romelia Ward. After his father's death, he adopted his father's given name and became Prentice Herman Polk, known as P.H.
Education
In 1916, Prentice Polk enrolled at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) intending to become a painter. His plans changed when he heard photographer C. M. Battey - who headed up Tuskegee's Photography Department from 1916 to 1927 - talk about the potential of that field and encourage interested students to come to see him. After speaking with Battey, Prentice Polk went on to study photography with him by correspondence.
In 1924, Polk moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he furthered his studies with a white photographer, Fred A. Jensen.
Prentice Polk returned to Tuskegee in 1927 to open his own studio in his home in the town. His mentor Battey died that same year, and the following year Prentice Polk joined the school's faculty. In 1933, he took over as head of the Photography Department, remaining in that capacity until 1938. He left for a year in an attempt to open a branch of his photography studio in Atlanta, GA, before returning to Tuskegee to serve as the college's official photographer for four decades.
Polk's photographs have been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC), the Museum of Natural History (New York, NY), the Studio Museum in Harlem (NY), and a range of galleries and other institutions.
Prentice Polk retired from Tuskegee in the early 1980s and died in Tallassee, AL, on December 29, 1984.
Writes Kay Leigh Hagan: "Polk's images "display a tension between precise formality and X-ray vision, the result is a compelling photographic style that stuns the viewer with an unexpected intimacy."
Connections
Prentice Polk married Margaret Blanche Thompson in Chicago in 1926. They had a son.