Teenie Harris Photographs: Cars presents 25 photographs selected from Carnegie Museum of Art’s Teenie Harris Archive, which contains well over 2,000 images of automobiles from the 1930s to 1970s.

The exhibition emphasizes not only the beauty and elegance of these iconic cars—Cadillacs, Dusenbergs, Hudsons, and Buicks—but also the roles that they played in Pittsburgh’s segregated African American communities. Harris photographed the micro economy of the Hill District’s repair shops, service stations, and dealerships, as well as black celebrities interacting with cars, such as Willie Mays representing Buick, or Nat King Cole riding in a black-owned Owl Cab when other Pittsburgh taxi services refused black riders. Harris captured them on showroom floors, in driveways, on the street, and at parties, always as part of daily life.

Teenie Harris Photographs: Cars is organized by Kenneth L. Hawthorne (b. 1934), who once serviced cars for Teenie and his brother Woogie Harris. Teenie followed Hawthorne’s automotive career from Esso station owner to a vice president of Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh.