Bio
Born in Chicago, Charles Muir Lovell lives and works in New Orleans. He holds an MFA and a BS in photography, from Central Washington University and East Texas State University. Lovell began photographing as a young man traveling throughout Europe and South America. He continued his photography practice during his twenty-plus years as a museum director/curator, a career that took him from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest and Deep South, everywhere finding distinctive cultures and photography subjects.
Lovell has long been passionate about photographing people within their cultures. Upon moving to New Orleans in 2008, he began documenting the city’s second line parades, social aid and pleasure clubs, and jazz funerals, capturing and preserving for posterity a unique and vibrant part of Louisiana’s rich cultural heritage. An earlier series based on religious processions in Mexico, El Favor de los Santos, was a Rockefeller Foundation–supported international traveling exhibition. It resulted in a book published by the University of New Mexico Press, Art and Faith in Mexico, in 1999.
His photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, are found in several permanent collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Historic New Orleans Collection, and can be seen at CharlesLovell.com and on Instagram @charleslovellart. He received the 2020 Michael P. Smith Documentary Photographer of the Year Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Lovell has also developed a series of photographs called Language of the Streets that he began in Venice, Italy, while an artist in residence at the Emily Harvey Foundation in 2006–2007. He returned to Venice for a second residency in the fall of 2015 and is scheduled to return in 2021. He continued this series in Naples, Paris, Mexico City, New Orleans, and New York City.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Included in over twenty-eight solo exhibitions from 1980 to present.
Cultural Traditions of New Orleans: Photographs by Charles Muir Lovell, exhibition and lecture, Stony Brook University, Department of Africana Studies, Stony Brook, New York, 2023-2024.
Archives Exhibition. Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, 2022.
Back When The Good Times Rolled 2009 to 2020, Solo Exhibition, AllAboutPhoto.com, From January 01, 2022 to January 31, 2022.
Back When the Good Times Rolled II. Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, 2021.
Back When the Good Times Rolled I, supported by a Jazz & Heritage Media & Documentation Community Partnership Grant funded by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, 2020.
The Art of Procession: A Visual History of New Orleans Second Lines, Photography by Charles M. Lovell (USA) presented at Museum Innovation Forum MCNX at New Orleans Jazz Museum, 2019.
Charles Lovell: New Orleans Second Line Legacy, Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, Dec. 8, 2018–Feb. 2, 2019.
Off the Street: New Orleans and Venice in Charles Lovell’s Photography, Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, curated by Anna Mecugni, satellite exhibition of Prospect.4 New Orleans, 2017–2018.
Preserving New Orleans Second Line Culture: Charles M. Lovell Photographs, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Gallery, New Orleans, 2016–2017.
Charles Lovell Photographs: New Orleans Unseen, selected satellite exhibition of Prospect.3 +, New Orleans, juried by Franklin Sirmans, LACMA and Prospect.3 curatorial staff, Galerie Campanile, New Orleans, 2014–2015.
Mexico, Te Quiero: Photographic Exhibition by Charles Lovell; 25 Years of Photography, Gallery of the Consulate of Mexico in New Orleans, 2014.
Trinity: Photographs by Charles M. Lovell, Salon Morelocks, New Orleans, curated by Alexis Stahl, 2013–2014.
Charles M. Lovell Photography, Taos Center for the Arts, Taos, New Mexico, 2007.
Art and Faith in Mexico, Glenn Cutter Gallery, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2001.
Gray Areas, Elliot University Center Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina, 1995.
Charles Lovell Photographs: Paradox in Black and White, Sala de Arte, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Mexicali, BC, Mexico, 1994.
Sin Fronteras: Photographs of Mexico and the Southwest, Gallery Milepost Nine, Arizona Western College, Yuma, Arizona, 1993.
Rock Art Portfolio, Brevard College Art Gallery, Brevard, North Carolina, 1993.
Charles Lovell Photographs, Stevens Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1992.
Spirits of the Rock, Mendenhall Gallery, East Carolina University, 1992.
Angst, Mind’s Eye Gallery, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, 1985.
Through Open Eyes, Washington Commission for the Humanities Grant, traveling exhibition, 1983.
Goddard Center for Visual and Performing Arts, Ardmore, Oklahoma, 1983.
Nickle Art Museum, the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1983.
Selected Group Exhibitions
Included in over seventy-six group exhibitions from 1980 to present.
From Here to There: An Unbreakable Cultural Bond, Seven Artists from Mexico and The United States of America, Mexican Consulate Gallery, New Orleans, 2022 to 2023.
Metamorphosis: From Marginal to Magnificent, Arabi Visual Arts, Louisiana, second venue sponsored by the Leona Tate Foundation for Change at McDonough Elementary School, New Orleans, 2022 to 2023.
Portrait, Southeastern Center for Photography, Greenville, South Carolina, curated by Richard McCabe, Curator of Photography of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2022.
Artists Respond-Post Rowe Louisiana, Carroll Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2022
Connection, Blue Sky Gallery, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts, Portland, Oregon, 2022.
The Biennial Project at the Venice Bienniale, Venice, Italy, 2022.
Farewell To The Flesh, Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2022.
Art of Healing, Second Story Gallery, catalog, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021.
Transitions 2021, Blue Sky Gallery, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts, Portland, Oregon, 2021.
Resuscitation, Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021.
Dancing in the Streets: Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs of New Orleans, The Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021.
Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States, organized by Princeton University Art Museum, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2021.
Mysteries in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras, the Presbytère, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans, curated by Kim Vaz-Deville and Ron Bechet, 2021.
Louisiana Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, juried by Rene Morales, Chief Curator of the Perez Art Museum, Miami, catalog, 2020–2021
Visualizing 2020, Blue Sky Gallery, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts, Portland, Oregon, 2020.
On the Line, New Orleans Photo Alliance, Louisiana, curated by Brian Piper, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Photographs, New Orleans Museum of Art, biographical video included in PN20: Open-Air Digital productions in partnership with Luna Fête, 2020.
Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 2020.
We Are All Contagious, UMass Dartmouth Art Galleries, New Bedford
Massachusetts, juror Nato Thompson, Artistic Director of Philadelphia Contemporary, 2020.
Presenze veneziana, parte 2: Tempo e luogo, Archivio Emily Harvey, Venice, Italy, 2020.
Maafa Experience, curated by Gason Aysyin, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2019.
Venice: Two Perspectives; Lovell and Skuber, two-person exhibition at Second Story Gallery, New Orleans 2019
Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, 2019.
Joy and Suffering: The El Paso Museum of Art’s Collection Of Mexican Retablos, El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas, 2019.
Art Flow, Baton Rouge Arts Council, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, work at three venues, 2019.
New Orleans Medley: Sounds of the City, Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, 2019.
Mardi Gras: The Artist’s Eye, Studio Waveland and Gallery, Waveland, Mississippi, 2019.
Streets of New Orleans Photography Exhibition, New Orleans Art Center, curated by Don Marshall, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2018.
Maafa: Creativity, Faith, Tradition and Resilience, curated by Gason Ayisyin, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2018.
Politico Pop Up 3, Artspace 3116, Catalyst Collective, New Orleans, 2018.
Louisiana: A Celebration of Life, Bywater Biennial II, curated by Don Marshall, New Orleans Art Center, 2017
Project 387, Archivio Emily Harvey, Venice, Italy, curated by Berty Skuber, 2017.
The Mardi Gras Indians: Cultural Connections in the Americas, Mexican Consulate Gallery in New Orleans, curated by Michael Alford, 2017.
Life Outside the Lines, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2017.
Louisiana Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, curated by Shantrelle P. Lewis, 2017.
Your Happiest Moments, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, curated by Peter Nakhid, New Orleans, 2017.
Metamorphosis: Unapologetic Existence, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, curated by Asia-Vinae Jazzreal Palmer, New Orleans, 2017.
Leporelli Veneziana, Archivio Emily Harvey, Venice, Italy, 2016–2017.
The Dog Show, Studio Inferno, Arabi, Louisiana, curated by Carol Leake, catalog, 2016.
Bombay Sapphire New Orleans Artisan Series Exhibition, juried by Andre Guichard, LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, 2016.
Creative Alliance New Orleans (CANO) Exhibition, Myrtle Banks Building Art Space, Dryades Market, New Orleans, 2016.
Louisiana Photography Biennial, New Orleans Art Center, curated by Don Marshall, 2016.
Experiments in Anarchitecture, Contemporary Arts Center, curated by Andrea Andersson, 2016.
Photobook Melbourne # Memory-Archive, Melbourne, Australia, 2016.
Pelican Bomb Gallery X, curated by Amanda Brinkman, New Orleans, 2016
End of the Rainbow: Paradise Imagined, curated by C. Freedom, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2016.
Wetland Art Tour Exhibition, curated by Carl Joe Williams, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2016.
Re-Purposeful Delights, curated by D. Lammie Hanson, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans, 2016.
Culta a la Muerte: Day of the Dead Exhibition, three-person exhibition at Mexican Consulate Gallery of New Orleans, 2015.
Catalyst, curated by Alan Rothschild, Jr., New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, New Orleans, 2015.
The Probable Trust Registry: Rules of the Game #2, Adrian Piper’s group performance, 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2015.
Louisiana Contemporary, Ogden Museum, New Orleans, juried by Brooke Davis Anderson, Executive Director of Prospect New Orleans, 2015.
Reverb: Past, Present, Future, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, curated by Isolde Brielmaier, Director of the Contemporary Art Initiative, New York, 2015.
Contemporary Artists Respond to the New Orleans Baby Dolls, George and Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art, curated by Kim Vaz-DeVille and Ron Bechet, New Orleans, 2015.
Purchase Award Exhibition, Art Council of New Orleans, 2015.
Bombay Sapphire Exhibition, curated by Cameron Shaw, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, 2014.
Nola Now II, juried exhibition at Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, juror Don Marshall, Executive Director of New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, 2012.
Art Chaud, DuMois Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2010.
Crossroads and Connections II, Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, image featured on invitation, 2010.
Pinturas de Fe, seven photographs included in national traveling exhibition, 2004–2008, organized by Museum of New Mexico’s TREX. The show traveled to the William King Regional Arts Center, Abingdon, Virginia; Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey; Lauren Rogers Art Museum, Laurel, Mississippi; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming; Indianapolis Art Center, Indiana; and Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College of California, Morgana, California.
International Juried Show, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, New Jersey, Juror, Charlotta Kotik, Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2004.
El Favor de los Santos: The Retablo Collection of New Mexico State University, international traveling exhibition funded by the Rockefeller Foundation included twelve of my large-scale photographs. The exhibition toured from 1999 to 2003 to the Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City; Museo del Amparo, Pueblo, Mexico; Museo de Arte y Historia Mexicana, Monterrey, Mexico; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California; Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago; Lowe Art Museum, Miami; Las Vegas Art Museum, Nevada; National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Museum of the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Museo de las Americas, Madrid, Spain; and Casa Museo de Colon, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands.
New Photography in the Collection, Missoula Museum of Art, Missoula, Montana, 2000.
Entre Lineas II, international art competition sponsored by the Ford Foundation at the Museo de Arte e Historia del INBA, Juarez, Mexico, 1997.
Biennial Faculty Exhibition, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 1996.
First Triennial Merry Moor Winnett Photography Exhibition, GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, North Carolina, invitational curated by Henry Link, 1995.
Fourteenth Annual North Carolina Photographers Exhibition, Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina, juror Cynthia Stevens, Associate Curator of Photographs, Eckstrom Library, University of Kentucky, 1994.
Charles Lovell and Martha Vaughn: Photographs and Monoprints, St. John’s Museum of Art, Wilmington, North Carolina, curated by Anne Brennan, 1994.
Thirteenth North Carolina Photographers Annual Exhibition, Frankie G. Weems Gallery, Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina, juror Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator of Photography, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993.
Chances in Time: Random Operations in Film, New College of California Gallery, Cinematheque, San Francisco, invitational exhibition including works by Man Ray and Bruce Conner, curated by Robert Irwin, 1985.
National Aperture ’85, Associated Artists Gallery, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, national juried exhibition, juror Cornell Capa.
Obsession/Compulsion, ASA Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, national juried exhibition, 1985.
A Little Erotic ’85, Pinnacle Gallery, Rochester, New York, national juried exhibition, 1985.
Positive-Negative, Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee, national juried exhibition, juror Jack Cowart, Curator of 20th-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1985.
Il Cabo Frio International Print Biennial, Cabo Frio, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and eleven other sites in Brazil, 1985.
The Magic Silver Show, Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray Kentucky, national juried exhibition, 1984.
Photography ’83, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington, Northwest Juried Exhibition, Rod Slemmons, Curator of Photography, Seattle Art Museum, 1983.
Society for Photographic Education (SPE) Northwest Touring Show, Western Washington University, Cheney, Washington, 1981.
Archives of Texas A&M–Commerce, Texas
Arts Council of New Orleans, Public Art Collection, New Orleans, Louisiana
Cabo Frio International Print Biennial, Cabo Frio, Brazil
El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, Louisiana
Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio, Texas
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina
Missoula Museum of Art, Missoula, Montana
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Foundation
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Photographic Resource Center, Boston, Massachusetts
Sarah Spurgeon Art Gallery, Ellensburg, Washington
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington
Tulane University Latin American Library, New Orleans, Louisiana
Visual Arts Gallery, Pensacola, Florida
Selected Collections
Artist in Residence, Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice, Italy, 2020–2021. (Residency postponed because of COVID-19).
Awarded a Jazz & Heritage Media & Documentation Community Partnership Grant, funded by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, for the exhibitions: Charles Muir Lovell, Back When the Good Times Rolled, I and Eric Waters, Eclectic Images, held at the Second Story Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2020.
Michael P. Smith Documentary Photography Award from Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, May 2020.
Nominated for Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, Paris, France, by John Lawrence, Director of Museum Programs, Historic New Orleans Collection, 2015, 2017, 2019.
Awarded a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Community Partnership Grant in category of Archive, Documentation and Preservation for organizing the Preserving New Orleans Second Line Culture exhibition, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Gallery, New Orleans, 2016–2017.
Nominated for Prix Elysée Award, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, one of 440 nominees from 69 nations, by John Lawrence, Director of Museum Programs, Historic New Orleans Collection, 2016.
Artist in residence, Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice, Italy, 2015.
Received travel award from French Consulate of New Orleans for museum research and photography in Paris, Alsace, and Lyon, France, for two weeks in 2012.
Arts Council of New Orleans, Community Arts Award for Newcomb Art Gallery, 2010.
People to Watch Award, New Orleans Magazine, September 2008.
Publication award, Peter and Madeline Martin Foundation, San Francisco, for Richard Diebenkorn In New Mexico publication, 2008.
Artist in Residence, Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice, Italy, 2007.
Publication award from American Association of Museums for Minnie Evans: Artist publication, at East Carolina University, Wellington B. Gray Gallery, 1993.
History of the Lower Colorado River Photography Contest, Best of Show Award Black and White, Cultural Council of Yuma, Arizona, 1989.
Award of Excellence, American Federation of Arts, for Ten Years After, publication of Yuma Art Center, Arizona, 1989.
East Texas State University International Photography Competition, Commerce, Texas, honorable mention, 1985.
Pensacola National Portrait Exhibition, Visual Arts Gallery, Pensacola, Florida, Purchase Award, 1984.
Parkersburg 1984 Juried Art Exhibition, Parkersburg Art Center, Parkersburg, West Virginia, national juried exhibition, first place award for black and white, 1984.
Photographer’s Forum Magazine, “The Best of College Photography” issue, honorable mention, 1984.
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
“Capturing New Orleans: Photographer Charles Lovell in Conversation with Gwen Thompkins,” host of “Music Inside Out,” “Bright Lights Online: Conversation with 2020 Humanities Awards Winners,” Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, recipient of 2020 Michael P. Smith Memorial Award for Documentary Photography, Jan 15, 2021.
New Orleans Second Lines, Lusher School 4th and 5th grades, 200-person assembly for photojournalism class, 2016
The Art of Procession, visual presentation for Tulane University History Department's Global Gulf South II Conference, New Orleans, 2013.
Charles Lovell Photographs: Paradox in Black and White, gallery talk, solo exhibition at the Sala de Arte, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Mexicali, BC, Mexico, 1994.
Lecture, “New Photography,” American Society of Appraisers, Seattle, Washington, 1986.