2011.05.25: May 25, 2011: Bolivia RPCV Henry Wilhelm honored for his photography

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Bolivia: Peace Corps Bolivia : Peace Corps Bolivia: New Stories: 2011.05.25: May 25, 2011: Bolivia RPCV Henry Wilhelm honored for his photography

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Bolivia RPCV Henry Wilhelm honored for his photography

Bolivia RPCV Henry Wilhelm honored for his photography

Forty-four years after he picketed graduation, the counterculture rascal was embraced at age 68. Not to mention that Wilhelm's banned '66 yearbook, eventually published by the college in 1986, will be honored in Grinnell's Faulconer Gallery as a full-blown art exhibit opening in April 2012. It's worthy: The yearbook's candid photojournalism captures in black and white the essence of mid-'60s life at a small liberal arts college in Iowa, not rows of smiling faces in posed team photos. Monday's degree was Wilhelm's first from Grinnell. He spent two and a half years in classes in the '60s before an entrepreneurial itch led him to leave school. He patented and manufactured his own archival print washers for the old-fashioned photo developing process that uses chemicals and water. His life's mission, he explained to the Class of 2011, has been to help preserve the world's photographs. His Wilhelm Imaging Research lab in Grinnell conducts independent color testing for the likes of Canon, Epson and Hewlett-Packard. He does for color images what fuel economy stickers do for automobiles or nutrition labels do for food products. "I think he's been fortunate to be one of those people that follows what he wants to do and tries to get by while doing that," said Wilhelm's older brother, Donald, on hand from California for the graduation.

Bolivia RPCV Henry Wilhelm honored for his photography

Grinnell College gives photography legend his due

Grinnell, Ia. - Henry Wilhelm picketed Grinnell College's 1967 graduation ceremony on the campus lawn. He held aloft a sign that read: "We offered to negotiate - Leggett refused."

The college president at the time, Glenn Leggett, had banned the 1966 yearbook co-edited by Wilhelm because of allegedly libelous photos that today barely seem scandalous. (There was a close-up of a student's hand, for instance, that held a smoldering joint.)

Monday, Wilhelm stepped up to the podium in the sunshine on that same lawn and delivered a 10-minute acceptance speech during graduation as one of four honorary degree recipients. He was lauded as "a legendary figure in the history of photography" and "the world's leading authority on the permanence and preservation of traditional and digital color photographs."

Forty-four years after he picketed graduation, the counterculture rascal was embraced at age 68. Not to mention that Wilhelm's banned '66 yearbook, eventually published by the college in 1986, will be honored in Grinnell's Faulconer Gallery as a full-blown art exhibit opening in April 2012. It's worthy: The yearbook's candid photojournalism captures in black and white the essence of mid-'60s life at a small liberal arts college in Iowa, not rows of smiling faces in posed team photos.

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Caption: From left, John Phillips, Krystyna Neuman and Henry Wilhelm picket Grinnell College's graduation in May 1967. Phillips and Wilhelm were co-editors of the college's yearbook, and Neuman was the editor of the school newspaper. They were protesting college President Glenn Leggett's decision to ban the yearbook over photographs that were deemed controversial and potentially libelous. The yearbook was published in 1986, and the book and its photography will be the focus of an art exhibit at Grinnell College next year. / Photo: Steve Raitt

Monday's degree was Wilhelm's first from Grinnell. He spent two and a half years in classes in the '60s before an entrepreneurial itch led him to leave school. He patented and manufactured his own archival print washers for the old-fashioned photo developing process that uses chemicals and water.

His life's mission, he explained to the Class of 2011, has been to help preserve the world's photographs.

His Wilhelm Imaging Research lab in Grinnell conducts independent color testing for the likes of Canon, Epson and Hewlett-Packard. He does for color images what fuel economy stickers do for automobiles or nutrition labels do for food products.

"I think he's been fortunate to be one of those people that follows what he wants to do and tries to get by while doing that," said Wilhelm's older brother, Donald, on hand from California for the graduation.

Donald once visited his brother on campus in the '60s, when he said Wilhelm was known as something of a zany character, or at least "more realistic than the culture at that time would put up with."

Meticulous and resolute are two words that come to mind to describe the older Wilhelm I met this week. His wife and collaborator, Carol Brower, calls herself the chronologist of the family, helping to keep Wilhelm organized.

Brower, a New Yorker, met Wilhelm in the 1970s because of his growing reputation for photo preservation. She was running a fine art photo studio in Greenwich Village; they met at a conference and eventually fell in love editing each other's work.

The couple's 744-page book, "The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures," was published in 1993 and remains the bible of color photo preservation.

The research lab in Grinnell is stocked with ozone test chambers, humidity chambers and a room dedicated to measuring the effects of light on color fading.

Wilhelm also stores pristine copies of The Des Moines Register and other newspapers inside a subzero cooler so that they can be preserved for thousands of years - an effort that's definitely near and dear to my heart.

Wilhelm grew up mostly in Arlington, Va. But his parents moved often and even taught at Grinnell College for several years in the late 1940s and early '50s.

This budding photographer was just 12 when (without permission) he converted one of his mom's closets into a darkroom.

After high school he spent a year in the Peace Corps in Bolivia. The country's heat and humidity stoked his curiosity: How could photos last in such a climate? He chose to return to Grinnell for college because he "got a feeling - a pretty strong feeling - that I would thrive here."

His pivotal college experience was the decision in March 1965 to drive his Volkswagen van down to Selma, Ala., to cover the voting rights marches that followed the "Bloody Sunday" police beatings of black civil rights protesters.

Wilhelm and three fellow Grinnell student journalists with the Scarlet & Black covering national news 900 miles away? Flashing their own fake "Midwest News Agency" badges? Seemed like a good idea, and it's just one of many examples of Wilhelm doing what he thought was right, not what was easy. (He also once spent a week in the Poweshiek County Jail in 1969 because he refused on principle to pay a $25 fine, but that's another story.)

John Phillips, who was Wilhelm's co-editor of the infamous 1966 yearbook, now has 20 photos on display in the college's John Chrystal Center Photo Gallery, including shots from that 1965 trip to Selma. Wilhelm and some of his friends and family took a nostalgic stroll through the gallery after Monday's graduation ceremony. Phillips died earlier this year of cancer at home in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Wilhelm and Brower's 18-year-old son, Charlie, begins classes this fall at Grinnell - permanence of a sort that has nothing to do with images or paper as Charlie continues the family legacy on campus.

"Permanence is something you can't see initially; it takes time," Wilhelm said while explaining his meticulous color lab tests.

The same could be said of a life's work.

Kyle Munson can be reached at (515) 284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. Connect with him on Facebook (Kyle Munson's Iowa), Twitter (@KyleMunson) and his blog (DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson).




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: May, 2011; Peace Corps Bolivia; Directory of Bolivia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Bolivia RPCVs; Photography; Awards; Iowa





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Story Source: Des Moines Register

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Bolivia; Photography; Awards

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