Villard “V.” Paddio left a photographic record of the Black and Creole culture in New Orleans during the early 20th century.
“Many of Paddio’s early photographs documented the city’s African American citizens and organizations, as well as the jazz scene, including photographs of a young Louis Armstrong,” Tulane University states.
Born in 1894 in the New Iberia-Lafayette area, Paddio lived in Tremé and opened a photography studio in the late 1920s. According to the Louisiana Weekly, he took thousands of images of Black middle-and-upper-class families and musicians, including Armstrong…