The main thing Langdon says he wants to do is leave a record of what these places, whether Paris or the Mississippi Delta, looked like in our particular time period. “In ten years or one hundred years, through photographs we’ll see what was here. It is too much hubris to say that this was what life was like, but it’s not too much to say this was what life looked like.”

From Manhattan to Mississippi, Langdon Clay’s photography records the narrative of a time and place.

Langdon Clay was born in Manhattan in 1949 and attended high school at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. In 1971, Clay moved to New York City, where he would pioneer fine art color photography with his collection Cars - New York City, 1974-1976. This collection is held in the Victoria & Albert in London, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Clay continued to photograph for the following sixteen years in New York, throughout the US, and in Europe for various magazines and books. His editorial photography includes Jefferson’s Monticello by Howard Adams, My Chateau Kitchen by Anne Willen and the publications Architectural Digest, House & Garden, and Food & Wine.

In 1987, he moved to Mississippi where he has since worked and lived with his wife, photographer Maude Schuyler Clay. His perspective on the South combines the eye of the native with the eye of the outsider.

Collections

Museum of Modern Art | New York, New York

Victoria & Albert Museum | London, England

Bibliothèque Nationale | Paris, France

Art Institute of Chicago | Chicago, Illinois

Mississippi Museum of Art | Jackson, Mississippi

Corcoran Gallery | Washington, D.C.

Forbes Galleries | New York, New York

Gracie Mansion | New York, New York

Museums Sheffield | Sheffield, England

University of Mississippi Museum | Oxford, Mississippi

Ogden Museum of Southern Art | New Orleans, Louisiana

Gumtree Museum of Arts | Tupelo, Mississippi

Jackson Fine Art | Atlanta, Georgia

Assembly Curated Platform

Publications

Books as an author and contributor

Southbound by Mark Sloan and Mark Long | Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, 2018

Cars, New York City 1974-1976 by Langdon Clay | Steidl, 2016

Eat Drink Delta by Susan Puckett | University of Georgia Press, 2013

Year of Our Lord by T.R. Pearson | Mockingbird Publishing, 2010

One Writer’s Garden by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown | University Press of Mississippi, 2011

Graceland’s Table by Ellen Rolfes | Rutledge Hill Press, 2005

Colonial Williamsburg by Phil Copper | Abrams, 2001

Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan | Abrams, 2001

From My Chateau Kitchen by Anne Willan | Clarkson Potter, 2000

Callaway Gardens: Legacy of a Dream by Steve Bender | Callaway Editions, 1996

Lee Bailey’s Long Weekends by Lee Bailey | Clarkson Potter, 1994

Lee Bailey’s New Orleans by Lee Bailey | Clarkson Potter, 1993

Madderlake’s Trade Secrets by Tom Pritchard and Billy Jarecki | Clarkson Potter, 1994

Madderlake Flowers Rediscovered by Tom Pritchard and Billy Jarecki and Alan Boehmer | Stewart Tabori & Chang, 1985

Mary Emmerling’s American Country South by Mary Emmerling | Clarkson Potter, 1989

The Shakers by Ken Burns and Amy Stechler Burns | Aperture Foundation, 1987

Colonial Williamsburg by Phil Copper | Abrams, 1986

Jefferson’s Monticello by Howard Adams | Abbeville, 1983

Magazines as a contributor

House & Garden Food & Wine

Architectural Digest Bon Appetit

Metropolitan Home House Beautiful

Better Homes & Gardens Saveur

Elle Decor Southern Accents

Maison & Jardin Grazia

Garden Design Veranda

Traditional Home Country Home

Fluid Magazine

Daily Picture Show

“In September of 1971, I found myself adrift. They called it an identity crisis then. My solution for digging out was to take on the job of photographing myself amidst whatever was going on every day for a year. Not selfies mind you, more a photo journal. Somehow this task saved me and so on its 50th anniversary, I repeated that effort.”