Dynamic Range: Photographs by Bill Tennessen

January 19 - May 12, 2024

Bill Tennessen is a self-taught photographer who began contributing photographs to the Milwaukee Community Journal, Wisconsin’s largest African American newspaper, in 1981. Tennessen was born and raised in Milwaukee. He is a 1956 graduate of Marquette University’s College of Business Administration.  

Dynamic Range includes 48 photographs by Tennessen that highlight Milwaukee’s Black community from the 1980s to the early 2000s. The exhibition was curated by Lynne Shumow (Haggerty Museum Curator for Academic Engagement) in collaboration with Dr. Robert Smith (Marquette University Harry G. John Professor of History and Director of the Center for Urban Research, Teaching and Outreach—CURTO) and Mia Phifer (Education and Research Coordinator at America’s Black Holocaust Museum).

^{Image: Bill Tennessen, American, b. 1934, Juneteenth Day Celebration, 1985, 8 x 10”, Silver nitrate print, Collection of the artist}