Curtis Nelson

In 1969 and 1970, Curtis Nelson traveled through, what was then the Republic of South Vietnam, recording the people he met in crisp, black & white photos.  Mr. Nelson’s photos from the Vietnam War and post-war period offer three very different glimpses of life at home and overseas during that era.  Spanning the years 1969-1982, his upcoming exhibit contains images of cheery, pretty Vietnamese girls, righteously angry vets marching on Washington for the 1982 groundbreaking of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall; and naked hippies strolling through the New Mexican desert in latter-day Eden tableaux.

Although not directly involved in armed combat while in Vietnam, Mr. Nelson was active during the ‘80’s in outreach to combat veterans of the war and in fund-raising for the Memorial Wall.  His interactions with vets revealed to him how deeply many veterans were still affected by the war.  He found that, regrettably, the war had never really ended for many of them and their families.  Their feelings of bitterness and betrayal are captured in his photos of veterans in their 1982 march on Washington, DC.

These protest photos contrast sharply with Curt Nelson’s series of photos from New Mexico, where he returned in 1970 from Vietnam.  In this series of photographs, he captures a carefree world of nudist hippiedom very far removed from the conflict overseas.  Even overseas, his images of native Vietnamese help-girls at a Christmas party offer an idyllic image of life away from the clash of arms.