OMFA to welcome subject of iconic Sleet photo

Feb. 23—The inaugural "Through Sleet's Eyes Festival," a celebration of Owensboro native and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Moneta Sleet Jr., is set to debut Friday at the RiverPark Center, and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art will welcome a special guest to town for the opening.

Thressa DeGrandchamp, who was photographed in Sleet's 1953 black-and-white image "Street Scene," will be at a reception at 3 p.m. Friday at the museum.

At 27, Sleet traveled to Blue Heaven, West Virginia, to capture coal miners in McDowell County, then the largest coal-producing county in the world, when Bonnie McNeal told Thressa, the fifth of eight daughters, to run across the street to the orchard and pick some green apples.

Sleet saw DeGrandchamp, now a resident of Maryland, coming up the street and snapped a candid shot of her — barefoot with curly hair and a bucket on her arm.

The photo is part of the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art's permanent collection.

Mary Bryan Hood, OMFA's executive director, said the reception came together by a "wonderful coincidence."

"She called the museum and made an inquiry about her picture hanging in our permanent collection photography gallery," Hood said, "and we talked, and she said that she was coming to Owensboro sometime in the future and wanted to know how long these pieces would be up."

Hood said DeGrandchamp wasn't aware of the festival.

"Of course, we told her about it, and she called back later and said that she decided to try to come to the festival," she said. "We were just delighted that it worked out that we were able to participate in such an important manner."

Bob Bruck, former photographer and retired city editor for the Messenger-Inquirer, and Keith Lawrence, retired reporter for the M-I, will also be in attendance at Friday's event.

In October 1997, Bruck and Lawrence met with DeGrandchamp, with the journey being detailed in an article titled "The Little Girl from Blue Heaven."

The pair met DeGrandchamp at her mother's home in Kimball, West Virginia, about five miles away from where the family lived and where the photo was taken.

Though a coal company leveled the town in 1978, Bruck photographed DeGrandchamp in the same location as Sleet's 1953 shot.

"We managed to weave through the briars and stuff and found her old homeplace," Lawrence said. "The grass was still green, and she was really excited .... She hadn't been back there in 20 years, I think.

"She found the apple tree ... and the green apples were still on the tree."

Bruck detailed finding DeGrandchamp in a 1997 column: "Tracking down girl was no easy task."

"It was kind of a one-in-a-million shot ... because ... I was trying to track down a nameless little girl from a 44-year-old photo that had been taken at a place that no longer existed," Bruck laughed. "So, the challenge was kind of inspiring and also just to be able to tell her story to the people of Owensboro."

While a call to Fred Watkins at Johnson Publishing Co., the magazine company where Sleet worked, and other efforts were unsuccessful, Bruck reached out to the McDowell County Board of Education.

Bruck shot a copy of the photo and mailed it out in hopes someone could identify her.

He heard from a former teacher, who wasn't sure if the girl pictured was DeGrandchamp or her sister Aquanetta, before Bruck connected with DeGrandchamp's mother.

"It was a bit unbelievable, actually," he said. "... I remember feeling pretty excited that it actually looked like the search was going to come to fruition."

Reprints of the pair's journey are included in a current exhibition at the museum celebrating Sleet's achievements.

In 1994, OMFA invited Sleet to present an exhibition of his photography at the museum. Sleet visited the museum in 1995 to discuss plans for acquiring a large collection of his prints to be presented in 1997.

The exhibition of 126 photographs was organized by the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library and sponsored at the museum by the Messenger-Inquirer and the A. H. Belo Foundation of Dallas, Texas.

Sleet died in 1996, before the exhibition opened. His widow, Juanita Sleet, helped arrange for the museum's acquisition of two of his works for the permanent collection.

At the exhibition in 1997, Watkins was able to talk about Sleet's professional and personal life.

"He was able to give a lot of insight into Sleet as a person," Bruck said. "... I think Mr. Watkins, Sleet kind of mentored him, and so he was pretty instrumental in giving an inside look into who this person really was — as a person and not so much as a photographer."

An exhibition of the 1953 image and other materials relating to the 1997 exhibition will continue to be displayed at OMFA through the end of April.

Friday's event is free to attend, but donations are encouraged.

For more information, visit omfa.us.