For Bill Chapman Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama represents the color of baseball. Over the course of 12 years Chapman has visited and photographed America’s oldest baseball park and its visitors. His friend, Dr. Ernest Withers, the master of social documentary photography who photographed the civil rights movement, told Bill Chapman countless stories of the Negro Leagues in Memphis and Birmingham. Withers introduced Chapman to the world of the Memphis Red Sox and the Birmingham Black Barons as well as Rickwood Field.

Bill Chapman’s The Color of Baseball will be featured in the Griffin Museum’s Atelier Gallery at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, August 14 – October 16, 2014. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions of “Picnic at Hanging Nook”, “Spamalot“, “Argonautika” and “Doubt, a Parable.”

A reception is August 20, 2014 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Bill Chapman says, “Rickwood [Field] is more than a well-preserved, century-old nostalgia piece. It is a sanctuary and haven for all of the players and fans of baseball that have played and passed though its gates over the years. Encapsulating more than just the charm of old parks, Rickwood has a unique charisma.”

Chapman is a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art. He has been in numerous exhibitions and his photographs have populated many books on baseball. He is the staff photographer and columnist for Boston Baseball Magazine.

Mr. Chapman resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bill Chapman’s gallery talk on The Color of Baseball exhibit at Stoneham Theatre.