Picturing America's Pastime Travel Exhibit Debuts in Fayetteville, N.C.

(COOPERSTOWN, NY) – The National Pastime and the art of photography came of age almost simultaneously, and baseball has long been a favorite subject of professional and amateur shooters alike.

This spring at The Arts Council in Fayetteville, N.C., fans can experience some of the game’s most telling images from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s world-renown archive through Picturing America’s Pastime.

Debuting Friday, March 22, and running through May 11, Picturing America’s Pastime features 51 framed photographs representing the Hall of Fame’s collection of approximately a quarter million images. An extension of the Museum’s exhibit in Cooperstown, the touring version of Picturing America’s Pastime captures the essence of an exhibit designed to show the historic link between the two American passions.

The Arts Council’s presenting partner in this exhibit is the Fayetteville Woodpeckers, a Houston Astros affiliate in the Carolina League debuting in 2019. The exhibit coincides with the opening of Segra Stadium, which hosts its first Woodpeckers game on April 18.

“Some of the greatest photographers of the last 150 years found baseball to be the perfect canvas for their work,” said Erik Strohl, the vice president of exhibitions and collections at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “The images in Picturing America’s Pastime represent a small sample of the brilliant work we preserve in Cooperstown, and the touring exhibit gives fans all over the country the chance to experience the beauty and power of these photos first-hand.”

Featuring work from photographers spanning generations, like Charles M. Conlon, Carl J. Horner, Arthur Rothstein, William C. Greene and Brad Mangin – along with many unidentified photographers whose images have been donated to the Museum – Picturing America’s Pastime captures the grandeur of the early game to the vibrancy of today’s sport through images in sepia, color and black-and-white.

The Arts Council is the first cultural organization to host Picturing America’s Pastime outside of Cooperstown, with the traveling exhibit also previously on display at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.