As Ross replied, “The answer is Bayard Wootten. Wootten was born in New Bern in 1875 and lived in Chapel Hill from 1928 through 1954. The UNC Library’s North Carolina Collection has an extensive collection of Wootten’s many landscape and portrait photographs.”
Ross adds that “I must confess that I had never heard of Bayard Wootten before this quiz question, but her last named sounded familiar and I learned that she is actually the grandmother of famed high school basketball coach Morgan Wootten, who coached ACC basketball stars such as Danny Ferry, Joe Forte, Sidney Lowe, Derrick Whittenburg, and Jerrod Mustaf during his 46 years at DeMatha High School in Maryland.”
According to www.lib.unc.edu, Wooten’s “first studio was in a small frame building beside the family home in New Bern. … Significant recognition materialized for Wootten after she moved to Chapel Hill in 1928. During this period she actively pursued subjects that complemented her pictorial style to great advantage. Her work includes beautiful gardens and spectacular landscapes, but Wootten’s most notable accomplishment was the creation of a photographic record of black and white Americans in the lower reaches of society — persons that other photographers often ignored.”
Women photographers were in the minority in the early 20th century and “the efforts of Bayard Wootten and other activist women photographers helped establish a larger foothold for women in the photographic profession. Thereafter, she settled into the niche of commercial photography, an arrangement that provided a livelihood while allowing her to pursue the medium as a form of artistic expression. She excelled at landscapes and portraits. Large billowing clouds or the gentle light of early morning and late afternoon turned her eye. On rare occasions she would backlight a subject and often used a soft focus and matte or textured photographic papers.”
Many of Wootten’s best known photographs “were made in the mountains of western North Carolina and the low country of South Carolina, but she also worked in other states, including Alabama and Tennessee. Wootten received frequent invitations to exhibit her work, and she assembled popular slide presentations based upon her architectural and landscape photography. Chapel Hill was the photographer’s home from 1928 until her retirement in 1954. Five years later she died in New Bern at the age of eighty-four.”
A pair of tickets to the Lumina Theaters is on the way to Ross.
Now it’s time to reveal next week’s Challenge. Here’s how it works. Every week we’ll pose a trivia question that has something to do with our community or North Carolina. The question might be about something that happened 20 years ago or someone who made the news just yesterday.
If you think you know the answer, send an e-mail to chquiz@aol.com, or mail it on a postcard to Chapel Hill Challenge, The Chapel Hill Herald, 106 Mallette St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516. You also can send us a fax at (919) 918-1055. Make sure you include your name, address and phone number. Answers must be received by Thursday of the same week. Employees of the Durham Herald Co. are not eligible for the Challenge.
Each week there will be a drawing from all the correct answers. The winner will receive a pair of movie passes donated by the Lumina Theater in Southern Village. (Note: Passes may not be valid for certain shows.)
Ready to give it a try? Then reload your Kodak Instamatic while pondering the following: “Who took photographs in the 1940s for the Daily Tar Heel and could be considered the ‘grandfather’ of the Carolina mountains?”
Good luck!
