Lycoming College Art Gallery Presents
Reflections of Africa

WILLIAMSPORT, PA –Reflections of Africa, a photography exhibition highlighting photographer Betty Press’s travels and experiences through Africa and the African Diaspora, opens on January 29th.  The exhibition, in the Lycoming College art gallery, located on the main floor of the Snowden Library, runs through February 24^th. 

The exhibition opens with a public reception and gallery talk by the photographer on Thursday, January 29, from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. 

Betty Press recently returned from Africa, where she served as a photographer for UNICEF.  She studied photography at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Press served as an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Stetson University from 1996 to 2003 and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Photography at the University of Southern Mississippi. 

Press has presented over twelve solo exhibitions in the United States and Africa, where she lived and worked as a free-lance photojournalist from 1987 to 1995.   

Over 100 of her photographs were featured in The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent published by the University Press of Florida and such major periodicals as Life, Time, National Geographic, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post. 

She has the honor of being one of 29 photographers selected for the 14^th Annual Women in the Visual Arts 2000 at the Erector Square Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.  In 1995 she placed in the top 100 photographers internationally in the Ernst Haas Awards Competition, sponsored by the Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport, Maine. 

Betty Press will be visiting the Lycoming College campus as an artist-in-residence and will be working with Lycoming College  photography students. 

The exhibition is open to the public during regular library hours: Monday through Thursday, from 8:00 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 1:00 to 11:00 p.m.  

Part of Spring Symposium and Black History Month 

Betty Press is part of Lycoming College’s Black History Month Celebration as well as a part of its spring symposium on civil rights “Brown vs. the Board of Education: The Road to Civil Rights” commemorating the 50^th anniversary of  the landmark Supreme Court decision. 

Other events:

Feb. 5 :  The Road to Brown: 27-min. documentary, The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality,  followed by a panel discussion. 7:30 p.m., Barclay Lecture Hall, Heim Bldg., Lycoming College 

Feb. 12: Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the “Little Rock Nine” students who integrated Central High in Little Rock in 1957. 7:30 p.m., Clarke Chapel, Lycoming College. 

Feb. 18:  Clarence Dart, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, 7:30 p.m., Barclay Lecture Hall, Heim Bld., Lycoming College 

Feb. 19: Benjamin Hooks, former executive director of NAACP, 7:30 p.m., Clarke Chapel, Lycoming College

 Black History Artists: 

Jan. 30: Slam poetry by E-Baby, 10 p.m., Jack’s Corner, Wertz Center, Lycoming College. 

Feb. 7: African Dance and instruction, Milissa Augustine Dance Academy, 9:30 p.m., East Hall Coffeehouse, Lycoming College. 

Feb. 13: Blues, jazz and folk music, Lea, 9:30 p.m. Jack’s Corner, Wertz Student Center, Lycoming College.