Culpepper - Mobile: Photographs from the William E. Wilson Collection

This photograph of a young boy holding a book was a pose frequently used by Wilson with children. The youngsters suit is patterned after the English Little Lord Fauntleroy suit, popular in the late 1880s. It was typically made of black velvet, but wool versions were adapted in the United States. Broad-collared starched shirts and heavy black leggings completed the suit, which was considered formal dress for young boys.

Wilsons photograph of four African-American boys sitting on a fence shares the feeling of camaraderie among the children and shows the photographers ability to authentically depict people in natural settings.

Simple wooden bridges often covered ditches and low-lying areas along Mobiles dirt roads. This photograph of three African-American children relaxing on a small bridge was typical of the lighter subjects of Wilsons wandering lens.

Photographers today could take a chapter from Wilsons stylebook with his baby in a bathtub photo. The picture was taken in a studio, where Wilson obviously took time to make the image stylistically and sentimentally beautiful. The unidentified baby could be boy or girl, but is obviously the apple of some parents eye, having such a fanciful portrait taken at a tender age.

This little girl was dressed stylishly in her ruffles and lace, complete with a soft lingerie hat, and sun-shading parasol. Her short, curled ringlets were typical of those worn by children in the late Victorian period and were often accomplished with heated metal curling rods.

Wilsons camera gives equal advantage to the intricately designed porcelain dolls in lovely handmade dresses as it does to the girl who appears to take pleasure in her doll collection. The dolls and accessories were handmade and likely imported from Europe, perhaps France or Belgium.

Wilsons ability to depict his subjects at ease in informal settings is evidenced in this wonderful portrait of a young African-American lad smiling brightly with his cap tipped jauntily. An oversized coat and sagging breeches, as well as the worn bootsone of which is missing a laceindicate economic poverty but nothing about this child indicates a lack of nurturing.

This photograph of Mrs. Rileys nieces shows two proper, young girls in a formal pose of the period but with softer facial expressions than often seen in similar photographs. The girls are apparently sisters and are wearing fashionable high-necked dresses and necklaces.