American Ballads: The Photographs of Marty Stuart

Country music icon, five-time Grammy award winner, member of the Grand Ole Opry, and passionate, skilled photographer Marty Stuart has become the unofficial caretaker of the history of country music, capturing backstage moments with such country and bluegrass legends as Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, and George Jones, as well as images of many of the fans and characters he has encountered on the road.

The exhibition is composed of more than sixty photographs from three bodies of work: “The Masters” of country music; the “Blue Line Hotshots” he has met on his travels on America’s back roads; and the Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and others in South Dakota in the section “Badlands.” It is accompanied by a fully-illustrated hardcover book. Published by Vanderbilt University Press, it includes a lengthy introduction by Stuart.

Exhibition overview from museum website