In celebration of William Faulkner's 100th birthday, the 24th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference poster features a historic portrait of the writer taken by the late Jack Cofield, who with his father Colonel J. R. Cofield was Faulkner's photographer and friend. The conference, Faulkner at 100: Retrospect and Prospect, will be held at the University July 27-August 1.

"The Cofield portraits of Faulkner may well be the most powerful of all those taken," said Tom Rankin, associate professor of Art and Southern Studies. "Perhaps it was the directness of the process and the power and dignity inherent in the simplicity of the studio portrait. Unique to the Cofield Studio portraits is the fact that, at times, William Faulkner looked directly into the lens."

Additionally, an exhibition of Cofield photographs of Faulkner will be on display in Barnard Observatory from July l through September 30 and will then be available for touring. The exhibition was assembled originally by Patti Carr Black, former director of the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, and later given to the Center. The photographs, last exhibited in Moscow during 1984, are being refurbished for the centennial anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning author's birth.

"These Cofield photographs are particularly important because they were assembled before the 1986 Valentine's Day fire, which destroyed Cofield's studio and many of the images and negatives of Faulkner," said Rankin. The Cofield Studio portraits show a different Faulkner, continued Rankin, partly a result of the friendship and genuine dialogue that existed between the Cofields and the writer. "People make choices of how they want to be seen in pictures and in turn how they do not want to be seen," said Rankin. "In the Cofield sessions, Faulkner was in control. He made the appointments, arrived dressed as he wished to be seen, and presented his look to the camera on his own terms."

"Colonel Cofield's first encounter with Faulkner was when the writer arrived in his studio with a copy of the Royal Air Force photo. Faulkner wanted Cofield to make a copy negative and enlarge it in a hurry, so he could get the photo back on his mother's bureau before she missed it," said Rankin. "That photograph of Faulkner in his RAF uniform may be contributed to the war hero mythology surrounding him."

Colonel Cofield, a third-generation photographer from Georgia, purchased a photography studio in Oxford in 1928. Cofield-whose title of Colonel was an informal Southern honor-always referred to Faulkner as his friend, and he became an avid collector of local history, as well as that of Faulkner's family and community, Rankin said. Along with his son Jack, Colonel Cofield made copy negatives of any and all photographs he could find or that people would loan him, assembling a personal archive of images documenting Faulkner family members and their life in Mississippi. The Cofields photographed Faulkner only when asked, said Rankin.

For more information on scheduling the exhibit, contact Karen Glynn, assistant director of the Southern Media Archive, at 601-232-7811.

Jennifer Bryon Owen