Byrd M. Williams IV maintains a studio in Dallas and teaches photography at Collin County Community College. He provided the photographs for Fort Worth’s Legendary Landmarks and his work is in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
"In the section titled 'Violence and Religion, ' images that he,
his grandfather, and his father made of their sons engaged in gun
make-believe, are bookended by Williams's grandfather's photographs
of Pancho Villa's bandits from 1915 on one side, and Byrd IV's
photos of gunshot victims on the other. The reader can draw their
own conclusions from the relationship between these images of
violence and the religious healing photographs that follow."--Great
Plains Quarterly
"The primary audience for this book will be photographers,
historians, genealogists, and those who seriously study the human
condition. Byrd Williams IV reveals within four of the Williams'
family generations, an interesting dichotomy found in the
photographic practices of the commercial and fine arts worlds."--O.
Rufus Lovett, photographer, Kilgore Rangerettes
"Byrd M. Williams IV has compiled a fascinating look into 120 years
of his family's four generations of photographers in his monograph
Proof. He deftly captures the history, personality and
individuality of each age, presenting all through the vernacular of
photography. Williams time-travels through images that predate the
Civil War, beginning with cyanotypes and ambrotypes, to today's
world of digital capture and ink jet prints."--Elizabeth Avedon,
independent curator and contributor, L'oeil de la Photographie
"Byrd Williams IV is a fourth generation Texan photographer who has
the archive of a lifetime in his negatives and his father's,
grandfather's, and great-grandfather's. When the works of all four
of these Byrd Williams are shown together, there will be more than
one family's history on view, but a nation's story as well. It is
both moving and revelatory to see these images and the vision of
the Williams' lineage."--Ann Jastrab, Gallery Director, RayKo Photo
Center
"The Byrd Williams Photographic archive is one of the most
important photographic collections in the country. Never before
have we had such a complete, multi-generational photographic
archive that takes us from the birth of photography to modern time.
The Williams photographs will be a treasure to historians for
generations to come."--Farris Rookstool, III, Emmy Award-winning
historian
"Byrd M. Williams IV knew early on what he was going to do with his
life: the same thing that Byrd, Byrd II and Byrd III did -- take
pictures. Byrd Williams IV is the last member of a Texas
photography dynasty, one that spans 120 years and three centuries,
as his family's interests went from snapshots and landscapes to
studio work and art. . . . The images mirror the use of photography
in the larger society and the way it shifted from generation to
generation."--New York Times Lens
"The book . . . not only reveals a family's extraordinary love for
photography, it also captures 120 years of Texas history, from an
image of what is proclaimed to be Sam Houston's and Pancho Villa's
soldiers to children reenacting the Alamo on a lawn during the
post-war era. . . . The images are a reverential window into the
lives of Texans otherwise forgotten."--Texas Monthly
"Proof is an amazing book. It takes us through personal stories
told through over a century of photography. It is not only a legacy
of imagery shot in the state of Texas but a significant legacy of
processes that span the entire history of
photography."--Lenscratch
"The book is a riveting look both at photographic history and at
the history of Texas."--Dallas Morning News
"Confronting loss and memory alike, Byrd Williams IV has compiled a
magnificent window into this impressive collection that at once
tells a family story and a story about the evolution of Texas.
Indeed, though culled from a family collection, this book can tell
us a great deal about the cultural, social, and technological
transformation of this state and this country. Not only does Proof
function as a trove of historical reference points, but it is a
singularly rich documentation of the evolution of
photography."--San Antonio Current
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