Hatch-Billops Collection

Hatch-Billops presented as gifts 13 prints by Billops over a period of years to Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia. In addition, Billops produced three prints as an artist in residence at BWA.

In developing the Hatch-Billops Collection, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the couple conducted oral histories with Black artists in all disciplines. Billops built the collection further by photographing the works of Black artists in exhibitions and private collections. Hatch focused on collecting published and unpublished plays, set designs, theater programs, and historical and biographical works. Together, they assembled a library of books, periodicals, clippings related to Black cultural arts, photographs, slides, objects, works of art, and printed ephemera including posters, postcards, and calendars.

From 1981 to 1999, Hatch-Billops published Artist and Influence: The Journal of Black American Cultural History, presenting oral histories of African American and some Asian and Latinx filmmakers, actors, musicians, painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, animators, choreographers, and singers—diverse creative figures from all fields of the performing, graphic, and spatial arts. The journal also featured transcripts of panel discussions and forums with artists representing minority communities. Artist and Influence shed new light on movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, the role of Black musicians, and the careers of individual artists. In 2002, with subsequent additions presented from 2011 to 2018, Billops and Hatch donated their collection to Emory University in Atlanta. The Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University is a premier collection for research in African American arts and letters in the 20th century. Its highlights include:     

• Thousands of rare and out-of-print books, periodicals, posters, and pamphlets on all aspects of African American history and culture
• Interviews with more than 1,200 writers, artists, poets, and other cultural figures
• Records of Karamu House in Cleveland, Ohio, nationally known for its dedication to interracial theater and the arts
• Scripts of nearly 1,000 African American-authored plays
• Paul Robeson photographs, theater programs, and other printed material, including an extensive clipping file

Camille Billops was an acclaimed filmmaker, author, printmaker, painter, ceramicist, archivist, and educator. Over the course of her career, she served on the faculties of Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, and the City University of New York. She worked overseas with the United States Information Service in India and was the art editor of Indiana State University’s Black American Literature Forum.

James V. Hatch was a theater historian and educator. He was a professor of English and theater at City College and City University of New York from 1965 to 1993 and a Fulbright Lecturer at Cinema Institute, Cairo, Egypt, from 1962 to 1965. He published widely on the subject of African American theater.

_{—Adapted from reflections of Allan L. Edmunds—a close friend to Camille Billops and the founder and executive director of Brandywine Workshop and Archives and administrative director of Artura.org—and excerpted from the overview of the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives on Emory University’s website: https://findingaids.Iibrary.emory.edu/documents/biIlopshatch927/#descriptive_summary}