Birney Imes discusses ‘A Photographer’s Journey’ at first Museum Moments of 2026
Museum Moments at the Union County Heritage Museum will begin 2026 on January 15, 12 noon with guest speaker Birney Imes from Columbus, Mississippi.
For more than 20 years beginning in the 1970s, Birney Imes roamed the countryside of his native Mississippi photographing the people and places he encountered along the way. A Photographer’s Journey is the topic of his presentation.
Working in both black and white and color, Imes’ photographs introduce viewers to the inhabitants of these rural byways and take them inside the juke joints and dilapidated restaurants scattered across that landscape. There he introduces the viewer, as one writer put it, “to the strange and marvelous qualities of these local gathering spots.”
Imes’ photographs have been collected in three books: Juke Joint, Whispering Pines, and Partial to Home, and have been exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States and Europe. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and numerous public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.
Imes’ friendship with German photographer Axel Kunstler added another chapter to his work documenting blues. Kunstler, a German born blues researcher and photographer, came to the South in 1978 on his blues odyssey. His current exhibit now showing at the museum was curated by Imes. Kunstler’s photographs feature blues artists of the not so well known from the region.
Imes began a new career chapter in the mid-1990s. His father was in failing health, Imes ceased photographing to run the family business, the local newspaper in Columbus, The Commercial Dispatch. In 2008 he was joined by his son, Peter, who now manages the newspaper, the fourth generation in his family to do so.
Throughout his time at the newspaper, Imes continued to exhibit his work. In 2011-2012 The Ogden Museum of Southern Art presented three consecutive solo exhibitions of Imes’ work.
A New Orleans exhibition of newly discovered images from Imes’ archive was exhibited at A Gallery for Fine Photography in February 2019.
Retired from the newspaper, Imes now spends his time gardening, planting trees and kayaking.
Museum Moments is a free event made possible by Community Partners. A light lunch will be available at 11:30, made possible by the Museum Guild.
The museum is located at 114 Cleveland Street, New Albany, MS 38652 For more information call the museum at 662-538-0014.
Jill N. Smith
Director
Union County Heritage Museum & Faulkner Garden
114 Cleveland St.
New Albany, MS 38652
662-538-0014
