Open Lands: Tree Planting in honor of National Arbor Day.

"Art is Business. 

On Arbor Day, the Village of Hazel Crest Beautification Commission hosted a Village Clean Up Day and Tree Planting, and the dedication of a new metal People Chair sculpture by artist Alpha Bruton at Art in the Woods. The event took place at the Hazel Crest Open Lands Arboretum on Saturday, April 25, 2026.

The afternoon included an outdoor digital photography workshop led by William G. Hill and a presentation on the AI-Narridin Plastic Woven Recycle Bag project, which covered the display logs.

Address:   Hazel Crest Police Department

 3000 W 170 Pl. Hazel Crest, IL 60429 

(Parking is available)

Installed at the Village of Hazel Crest Open Lands, Kedzie at 171st. 

Installation: April 18, 2026, Dedication of Sculpture: April 25, 2026, Village of Hazel Crest, Illinois

This is People Chair #29, of public art installations known as "Metal People Chairs," created by Shonna McDaniels, founder of the Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum in Sacramento, California. Each chair in the collection honors artists of the Harlem Renaissance and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). 

The Harlem Renaissance marked the emergence of Harlem, New York City's Black cultural mecca in the early 20th century—a center of social, artistic, and intellectual flourishing. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the era is widely regarded as a golden age of African American culture, expressed through literature, music, theater, and visual art.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an ambitious employment and infrastructure program created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression. Over its eight years of existence, the WPA put roughly 8.5 million Americans to work building schools, hospitals, roads and other public works. Perhaps best known for its public works projects, the WPA also sponsored projects in the arts—the agency employed tens of thousands of actors, musicians, writers and other artists.

The Hazel Crest Open Lands "Art in the Woods." This placemaking project is an exciting initiative that aims to transform our community's landscape by blending art with nature. This project seeks to engage residents throughout the process, inviting them to participate in both the design and installation of a captivating collection of sculptures. These artworks will serve as visual focal points and promote connection during community gatherings.

Pickup and delivery day at Peter N Gray Studio, young, enterprising artists to assist with movement. 

My family came out to celebrate: Herbert Raney Jr, Jazmin Bruton Davis, and Dani Davis.

Location of the Sculpture Installation facing 171st/Kedzie Open Lands

Alpha Bruton- Artistic Statement: My "Curatorial Practice" spans 46 years.

This project is essential to my career trajectory because I am focused on creating art in non-traditional settings as an environmental installation artist, working outside the traditional gallery context. I have traveled nationally and internationally as a resident artist, engaging communities in the art of artmaking in empty lots, national forest preserves, on land held in conservancy, in alternative galleries, and in museum settings. 

William G. Hill Center for the Arts

Digital Photography Workshop Presented by William G. Hill

William G. Hill founded the William G. Hill Center for the Arts (WGHCA), a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the Woodlawn community in Chicago. The mission of WGHCA is to support and improve creative and artistic expression. The organization aims to design programs that enhance, beautify, and revitalize communities physically, socially, and economically, utilizing multi-platform, culturally informed approaches to art and nature.

This placemaking project was a collaborative team: 

The Village of Hazel Crest Board of Trustees, Beautification/Open Lands Commission. 

Public Alpha Bruton, lead artist and muralist; Peter N. Gray, fabrication of the metal chair; and Harry Detry, embellishment of metal leaves. Works Department.  

William G. Hill Center for the Arts, the Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, and Allies for Community Business Chicago. 

RESEARCH:

MARGARET BURROUGHS

The Composition:

MARGARET BURROUGHS, an artist advocate for art, founded the Southside Community Art Center, the DuSable Museum, and the African American Association of Museums. An active member of the African American community, she also helped establish the South Side Community Art Center, which opened on May 1, 1941, and was dedicated by the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. There, at the age of 23, Burroughs served as the youngest member of its board of directors. A long-time educator, she spent most of her career at DuSable High School.

Taylor-Burroughs was a prolific writer, with her efforts directed toward exploring the Black experience and toward children, especially in fostering their appreciation of cultural identity and in introducing them to art and fostering their growing awareness of it. 

Freedom Railroad Quilt Patterns

Why Railroad Quilts Design? Great Migration

In 1890, William McClintock relocated from Ohio to Hazel Crest, where he established a depot for a local milk train. This depot became a vital transportation hub to Chicago and beyond, serving as the area's first real estate office, a public meeting space, a Sunday school, a day school, and the local post office.

The Underground Railroad, often misunderstood, was not an actual railway but a secret network of courageous individuals who helped enslaved people escape from the South during the 19th century. These escapees traveled to hidden "safe houses," guided by the North Star, toward northern states and Canada, where freedom awaited them.

Embellishment of wrought iron leaves, by Harry Detry

Installation of Ivy leaves attached to the screws from the back of the 1/8 " Metal plate.

Metal Oak Leaf flattened, and edges sanded smooth.

The oak leaves are attached to the metal with two rivets, creating a flush surface.

Chair fabricated by Peter N. Gray of Metal-i-genics Studio.o

Concrete pad 46" x 46"

Apply the primer coat, position the leg flaps, and ensure that the screws face each other from the inside.

Added a lip to attach to the top of the chair frame

Metal panels were delivered in two pieces for the chair's seat and back.

THE FABRIC OF FREEDOM: QUILTS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

The Fabric of Freedom: Quilts and the Underground Railroad Denise Brown

This color study of the headpiece was based on the YouTube video "Celebrating Black History Month." Presenting Sunshine Coast artist Denise Brown's Fabric of Freedom collection, including 19 square watercolor paintings that honor the quiet revolution of the Underground Railroad through the unique, mysterious storytelling quilts that represent.

This mosaic tile work by Thomas Hill was used for her portrait composition. The portrait of the museum's founder, Margaret Taylor Burroughs, is as resistant to fading as her artistic legacy.

The texture and three-dimensional quality of mosaic wall art interact with the light and the angle of viewing. The timeless quality of mosaic portraits seems to resonate with all of us. The DuSable Museum of African-American History in Chicago has several fine mosaic tributes to influential figures. 

I have always used color studies and clipping files to create collages of the ideas that inspire my compositions. These come from sources such as Paper Quilting, photos of pops of color in the natural environment of the Open Lands, and a leaf-printing workshop held there. 

 I like the texture and the use of leaf-printing.  

   Color studies for my head adornment

Texture leaves study for the seat

FLORIN ROAD ART WALK

"Art is Business"florinroadcommunitybeautificationproject.org

Welcome to the Florin Road Art Walk!

Discover a community of art, culture, and holiday cheer on December 21st, 2024.

Next, visit Florin Square at 2251 Florin from 12 to 6 p.m. for the December African Market Place. Florin Square and the surrounding properties are now home to 16 massive sculptures and more than 1500 square feet of murals, made possible by the Florin Road Community Beautification Project.

Take advantage of this exciting opportunity to discover new artwork, connect with fellow art lovers, and enjoy a day of winter cheer. See you there!

Learn More about the Florin Road Community Beautification Project at 

  

"Man's Way, Nature's Way." Richard Hunt

"Art is Business" https://maps.app.goo.gl/h6mjLyQLn57EFCHM9

Lobby Sculpture: Richard Hunt

The staircase to the second floor is a stainless steel sculpture in the lobby. The artist, Richard Hunt, creates abstract metal works, each a unique shrine to the human spirit. Richard Hunt has completed almost 100 public sculptures, large and small. The sculpture, explicitly developed for the CalEPA building, is tentatively titled "Man's Way, Nature's Way." The theme, according to Mr. Hunt, "is some of the ways man and nature originate and modify form. In its complex spatial organization of internal, external, natural, and architectonic relationships, the sculpture seeks to represent sculptural ideas of building a base, frame, and reference for human interaction with the environment."

Mr. Hunt, a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been a professor or artist-in-residence at several prestigious universities. His work is displayed in several public buildings, as well as at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, to name a few.

Renowned Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt dies at 88

Article reposted,   © 2023 Sandro  © 2023 Richard Hunt. All rights reserved. https://www.richardhuntsculptor.com/   

RICHARD HUNT

 © 2023 Sandro  © 2023 Richard Hunt.

September 12, 1935 - December 16, 2023

Richard Howard Hunt, 88, of Chicago, died peacefully on Saturday, December 16, 2023 at his home. A private funeral service will be held in Chicago. A celebration of art and life, open to the public, will be held in Chicago in the spring, with dates to be announced.

Born in Chicago on September 12, 1935, Richard Hunt was one of this nation's most important sculptors. His prolific art career spanned nearly seven decades. Hunt's metal sculpture is notable for its widespread presence in museum collections and many public monuments installed across the U.S. Despite challenges for African-American artists during his lifetime, Hunt held over 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the globe. Hunt made the largest contribution to public art in the United States, with more than 160 public sculpture commissions gracing prominent locations in 24 states and Washington, D.C.

A descendant of slaves brought to this country through the port of Savannah, Georgia, Hunt grew up on the South Side of Chicago, first in Woodlawn and then Englewood. His father was a barber, and his mother was the first Black librarian in the city of Chicago. During his youth, he was immersed in Chicago's cultural and artistic heritage through art lessons at the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) and the Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Regular visits to Chicago's major public museums trained his eye and captured his interest in art. Hunt would go on to develop an extensive collection of African Art, which served as an inspiration for his work. 

In 1953, the landmark exhibition Sculpture of the Twentieth Century was held at the Art Institute of Chicago. During this exhibit, Hunt studied the artworks of welded metal and became inspired by the works of Julio Gonzalez, Picasso, David Smith, and Alberto Giacometti, among others. Hunt attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) on a scholarship from 1953-57, where he focused on sculpture while earning his B.A.E. 

When Hunt was nineteen years old, he witnessed the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in Chicago. Till, who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, had grown up only two blocks from the Woodlawn home where Hunt was born. Hunt would later remark, "What happened to [Till] could have happened to me." Hunt went on to create art shaped by this experience, which influenced both his artistic expression and his commitment to the cause of Civil Rights. 

Inspired by Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, and shaken by the death of Emmett Till, Hunt taught himself how to weld and began composing found metal objects into art. Only two years later, he gained national recognition when the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired his sculpture, Arachne. In 1967, after the Chicago Picasso was unveiled, Hunt began creating works of Cor-Ten steel and later bronze and stainless steel which he continued using throughout his career. Hunt also created works of cast metal, usually aluminum or bronze, and was an accomplished draftsman who created drawings, lithographs, and screenprints, in addition to many sketched works. 

After graduating from the SAIC, Hunt went to Europe for a year to study art and worked at the famous Marinelli foundry in Florence. While in Italy, Hunt married fellow SAIC classmate Bettye Hunt in Florence in 1957. They welcomed a daughter, Cecilia, in 1962 and subsequently divorced in 1966. He returned to the U.S. in 1958 when he was called to serve in the military. During that same year, Hunt held his first solo exhibition in New York at the Alan Gallery. 

On March 16, 1960, while serving in the U.S. Army and stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Hunt desegregated the Woolworth's lunch counter in Alamo Plaza. Hunt was the very first African American served there. This brave action made San Antonio the first peaceful and voluntary lunch counter integration in the South. 

Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Hunt created abstract welded sculptures by acquiring bumpers and fenders from scrap yards, which became a signature of Hunt's work. He was only 35 years old at the time of his 1971 exhibition at MoMA, the first retrospective for an African American sculptor at the museum. The exhibit titled The Sculpture of Richard Hunt included fifty-five sculptures, eight drawings, and twelve prints. In addition, in 1981 Hunt served as one of eight jurors, the sole African American, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition in Washington, D.C.

Hunt sculpted major monuments and sculptures for some of our country's greatest heroes, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Owens, Hobart Taylor, Jr., and Ida B. Wells. His sculptures commemorate events from the slave trade and the Middle Passage to the Great Migration. His massive 30-foot, 1,500-pound bronze, Swing Low, a monument to the African American Spiritual, hangs from the ceiling of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Hunt's masterpiece, Hero Construction, stands as the centerpiece of the grand staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2022, Barack Obama commissioned Richard Hunt as the first artist to create a work, Book Bird, for the Obama Presidential Center.

A major artist's monograph, Richard Hunt, was published in 2022, becoming the definitive survey of Hunt's work and career. In addition, that same year, the Getty Research Institute (GRI) acquired the Richard Hunt Archive. The GRI noted that "throughout his career, Hunt was central to important landmarks in African American art history and Civil Rights-era action." Hunt's archive, over 800 linear feet, is one of the largest artists' archives in the country. 

Hunt considered artistic freedom to be the most important aspect of his career, "I am interested more than anything else in being a free person. To me, that means that I can make what I want to make, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should make." That artistic freedom was recognized and celebrated by the many institutions from which he received 18 honorary degrees and held over twenty professorships and artist residencies at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Northwestern, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Illinois. 

Hunt served on dozens of boards, committees, and councils, including serving as a Commissioner for the National Museum of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Hunt received more than 30 major awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center, the Fifth Star Award from the City of Chicago, and the Legends and Legacy Award from the Art Institute of Chicago. This year, April 24, 2023, was proclaimed "Richard Hunt Day" by Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker, celebrating his life's achievements and recognizing Hunt as one of our country's greatest artists. 

Hunt recently completed the sculptural model for a monument to Emmett Till, Hero Ascending, to be installed at Till's childhood home in Chicago. It will commemorate Till and the tragic event that gave rise to the modern Civil Rights movement and shaped the career of the sculptor Richard Hunt. Hunt is survived by his daughter Cecilia, an artist, and his sister Marian, a retired librarian, both of whom live in Chicago.

JOIN US FOR THE OPENING OF “Prairie Boat” by Artist Christine Perri

"Art is Business" reposted for artist Christine Perri

"Prairie Boat," the gathering space I designed for the Forest Preserves over a year and a half ago, has finally launched. This collaborative project used the skills of woodworker Craig Klucina of Plane-Spoken and various artists, most of whom connected to the Far South Side. In addition, I worked with several organizations besides the Forest Preserves, including Openlands and the Field Museum. My community partner was Imani Village, an organization that serves the surrounding area's health, education, and economic needs. 

JOIN US FOR THE OPENING OF

"Prairie Boat"

Saturday, June 10, 2023

10 - 11am

Beaubien Woods Boat Launch

(for driving directions, enter "Beaubien Woods Boat

Launch" into Google Maps)

Ribbon cutting with the program to follow A Gathering Space at the Forest Preserves of Cook County's Beaubien Woods.

Stay for Beaubien Woods Celebration Day @ Flatfoot Lake

11am- 3pm

bikes, canoes and kayaks, archery, hikes, arts, food, and more!

Or, for a guided canoe ride on the Little Calumet River, register here https://riverpaddling.eventbrite.com/

"Prairie Boat" A Gathering Space at the Forest Preserves of Cook County's Beaubien Woods "Prairie Boat" funded by Event Partners Experience the beauty of the river and learn about The Underground Railroad, The Birth of the Environmental Justice Movement, Civil Rights, and environmental quality with Wilderness Inquiry's canoe mobile.

Guided canoe ride slots are:

11:00 am to 12:30 pm

12:30 pm to 2:00 pm

2:00 pm to 3:30 pm

Canoe ride time options are on the registration checkout page, and ticket sales end June 9th, 2023. All are welcome; no paddling experience is required. Reserve your tickets now!

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Consider visiting Beaubien Woods Celebration on the same day starting at 11:00 am at Flatfoot Lake. Beaubien Woods Celebration activities include biking, hiking, archery, and more. You can register for Beaubien Woods Celebration here.

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Prairie Boat

You will see Prairie Boat at the Beaubien Woods boat launch. "Prairie Boat" is a gathering space newly constructed. It is a space for community gathering, programming, and connection to nature. Prairie Boat is inspired by the African American Heritage Water Trail and native prairie landscapes (a boat in the sea of the prairie). It was created by a group of artists connected with the area, and the design was chosen by a community curatorial committee convened by the Field Museum. Join us for its grand reveal!

The opening of Prairie Boat and the canoe mobile paddling is brought to you in partnership with Imani Villiage, Far South Chicago Coalition, the Field Museum, Forest Preserves of Cook County, and Openlands.

IN MEMORIAM: JIM PRIGOFF 1927 – 2021

"Art is Business" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/arts/james-prigoff-dead.html

..

I met Jim Prigoff in 1992, he presented for our Mural Summit when I contracted for the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission in Sacramento California, he also presented during the African American Art Summit, held in Sacramento, and San Jose California presenteed by the Visual Arts Development Project, and Celebration Arts Visual Arts Program. With much respect, he goes down in history for his documentation and for creating a legacy for muralists that reached international acclaim.  I always say he opened doors for me when I left Sacramento for Chicago by sending me a letter of introduction to the Chicago Public Art Group in 1999, where I became their program manager in 2000.  Alpha Bruton

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Bio-photo-Jim-Prigoff-250-1

BEYOND THE STREETS New York, 2019. Photo by Desdemona Dallas.

Jim Prigoff assembled one of the most extensive bodies of photo documentation of the global mural movement beginning in the 1970s. By the 1980s, he was photographing graffiti and co-produced the book Spraycan Art with friend Henry Chalfant in 1987, now considered a classic tome of modern graffiti. In addition, he has contributed to numerous books and projects and continues to lecture as a historian on public murals, graffiti, and spray can art. 

By Neil Genzlinger

Published May 1, 2021

Updated May 5, 2021

James Prigoff, who, after beginning his career in business, turned his attention to photography, documenting public murals and street art in thousands of pictures taken all over the world and helping to legitimize works once dismissed as vandalism, died on April 21 at his home in Sacramento, Calif. He was 93.

His granddaughter Perri Prigoff confirmed his death.

Mr. Prigoff was the author, with Henry Chalfant, of "Spraycan Art" (1987), a foundational book in the street-art field that featured more than 200 photographs of colorful, intricate artworks in rail tunnels, on buildings, and elsewhere — not only in New York, then considered by many to be the epicenter of graffiti art, but also in Chicago, Los Angeles, Barcelona, London, Vienna, and other cities. It included interviews with many artists and even captured some of them in creating their work.

The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies. However, Mr. Chalfant, in a phone interview, said a British newspaper had also given it a less financially rewarding distinction: It said "Spraycan Art" was the second-most-stolen book in London. (The most stolen book, Mr. Chalfant noted, was the similar "Subway Art," which he and Martha Cooper had published three years earlier.)

Image

“ Spraycan Art,” written by Mr. Prigoff and Henry Chalfant and published in 1987, was a foundational book in the street-art field.

"Spraycan Art," written by Mr. Prigoff and Henry Chalfant and published in 1987, was a foundational book in street art.

"Spraycan Art" came out when street art had grown relatively sophisticated, but the artists who made it were still regarded by many as mere vandals. Mr. Prigoff, in subsequent books and in the talks he gave, argued otherwise.

"'Vandalism' may be a matter of point of view, but it is clearly art," he told The Press-Telegram of Long Beach, Calif., in 2007. "Museums and collectors buy it, corporations co-opt it, and it matches all the dictionary definitions of art."

Those who dismiss street art, he contended, are missing its significance. That was certainly the case for the long-marginalized Black artists he and Robin J. Dunitz documented in the book "Walls of Heritage, Walls of Pride: African American Murals" (2000).

"Given limited access to the more formal art venues," Mr. Prigoff wrote in the preface, "African-American artists chose the streets and other public places to create images that challenged negative messages."

In a 1993 talk in Vancouver, British Columbia, he decried a double standard in cities that continued to conduct a war on graffiti while allowing billboards for Camel cigarettes with their images of Joe Camel.

"You tell me what's uglier," he challenged the audience, "a wall of spray-can art or the cartoon character with the phallic face?"

James Burton Prigoff was born on October 29, 1927, in Queens. His father, Harold, was a mechanical engineer, and his mother, Fannie Bassin Prigoff, was a homemaker who the family said graduated from Syracuse Law School.

Mr. Prigoff grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., and graduated from New Rochelle High School at 16. He studied industrial engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1947. Among the positions, he held in the business world were division president at Levi Strauss and senior vice president of the Sara Lee Corporation in Chicago.

He first made headlines not for his photography but for his squash playing: "Prigoff Triumphs in Squash Tennis; Beats Bacallao to Win 6th U.S. Title in 8 Years," read one in The New York Times in April 1967.

Mr. Prigoff said that his interest in street art and public murals was piqued in the mid-1970s when he attended a lecture by Victor A. Sorell, an art historian who had been documenting the work of Hispanic street artists in Chicago.

"I quickly found that documenting murals satisfied three interests that strongly motivated me," he wrote in the preface to "Walls of Heritage." "I enjoyed photography, respected the community aspect of public art, and had a strong concern for social and political justice — often the subject of street art."

He retired from the business world in 1987 and, two years later, settled in Sacramento. However, he continued to pursue his passion for photographing public murals of all kinds, sanctioned and otherwise.

"Sometimes it takes a book to help us 'see' the artistic merit of places we drive or walk by daily," Patricia Holt wrote in 1997 in The San Francisco Chronicle, reviewing "Painting the Towns: Murals of California," an earlier Prigoff-Dunitz collaboration.

Mr. Prigoff, who also photographed archaeological sites, view street art as part of a long historical chain.

"Go back thousands of years," he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1995. "People have written their names in the damnedest places for so long."

One of his favorite cities for mural hunting was Philadelphia, and in 2015 he lent 1,500 images he had taken there to Mural Arts Philadelphia, where Steve Weinik, the digital archivist, has been working to create an archive of them.

"Jim was early to recognize that graffiti is both legitimate art and ephemeral," Mr. Weinik said by email. "He understood that the photograph was the record and worked to document graffiti and murals at a time when virtually no one else recognized these things. His photography and his push to share it with the world helped preserve and validate the work."

Mr. Prigoff loved to travel, and he took pictures everywhere he went. But, unfortunately, one seemingly harmless shot landed him in hot water and a civil suit against the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2004 he was near Boston and took a photo of the so-called Rainbow Swash, a colorfully painted gas storage tank.

"Private security guards filed a suspicious activity report on Mr. Prigoff simply because he photographed public art on a natural gas storage tank in the Boston area," Hugh Handeyside, senior staff attorney for the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, said by email, "and F.B.I. agents later visited him at his home in Sacramento and questioned his neighbors about him."

Mr. Prigoff, who became one of several plaintiffs in a 2014 lawsuit against the Justice Department, contends that, in its zeal after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government was overreaching in its definition of "suspicious activity." The suit, Mr. Handeyside said, ultimately failed to change policy, but Mr. Prigoff thought the issue was important.

"I lived through the McCarthy era," he wrote of the incident, "so I know how false accusations, surveillance, and keeping files on innocent people can destroy their careers and lives."

Mr. Prigoff's wife of 72 years, Arline Wyner Prigoff, died in 2018. He is survived by two sons, Wayne and Bruce; two daughters, Lynn Lidstone, and Gail Nickerson; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

Mr. Chalfant said that Mr. Prigoff had just recently sent him images that he had shot of Sacramento during the coronavirus pandemic.

"He took pictures all around the city," Mr. Chalfant said, "of the emptiness of it."

Neil Genzlinger is a writer for the Obituaries Desk. Previously he was a television, film, and theater critic. @genznyt • Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on May 6, 2021, Section A, Page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: James Prigoff, 93, Dies; Photographer Had Zeal For