Savannah's Telfair Museum of Art is ready to open its most ambitious exhibit ever. The long-planned exhibit, "Dutch Utopia," explores an area of art history that wasn't well researched -- until now.
The painting "Ghost Story" by Walter MacEwen might look familiar to you. Not because of its subject -- a group of Dutch maidens sewing, spinning and listening in rapt attention as one of them tells a tale.
The painting might jog memories because of the way light pours in from a window. It recalls works by the 16th Century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.
But, "Ghost Story" is a 19th Century work by an American who lived in Holland. The Dutch maidens are normally at a museum in Cincinnati. Telfair museum curator Holly McCullough says it's a coup that the work is now on display in Savannah.
"This was an enormously popular narrative picture," McCullough says. "It represents 19th Century trends in American painting. I had to beg and plead for that one for about two years."
The exhibit "Dutch Utopia" took five years of planning and research. It explores a subject that Denver University art professor Annette Stott calls an under-studied area of art history. Stott wrote the catalog for "Dutch Utopia."
"It is the largest collection of paintings by American artists of the Netherlands that has ever been assembled," Stott says. "And that's important because it's a part of art history that's really not well-known."
The works are by Americans who lived Holland around the turn of the last Century. These Americans were searching for an escape from the urbanization of modern life.
So, their paintings run the gamut of obvious Dutch bucolic scenes. There are windmills, tulips and florid landscapes. And that's where the exhibit gets its title. Stott says, the Americans were painting a "Dutch Utopia."
"They lived at a time when the importance of art was that it was intended to be uplifting," Stott says. "It was supposed to leave the viewer a better person than before they saw the painting."
But more than painting pretty pictures -- like some touristy kitsch -- the Americans in Holland were part of a larger art movement. They were both looking back to earlier artists -- like Vermeer and Rembrandt -- and also presaging later ones.
Stott offers the example of George Hitchcock, who in the Dutch town of Egmont attracted followers of a particular style of color.
"And he was not a theoretical kind of a guy, but his students figured out ways of theorizing and codifying so that they could teach the color theory," Stott says. "And they, in the United States, established schools that taught that color theory that became part of modernism."
A day-long symposium at the Jespon Center on Friday will explore the importance of the Americans in Holland. For the organizing museum, Savannah's Telfair, the exhibit's importance is about how much effort went into putting it together. The Telfair's director Stephen High says, the 73 paintings in "Dutch Utopia" represent one of the most important exhibits from the South's oldest art museum.
"We had to borrow from some 30 museums here in the United States and another 20 or so institutions and collections in Europe, getting the loans in place, organizing all the packaging, preparation, getting the works shipped here," High says. "The other aspect is the scholarship that goes along with it, the book that's published."
"Dutch Utopia" is the Telfair's first exhibit to travel internationally. It'll travel to Holland next year. It also will show in Cincinnati and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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The painting "The Ghost Story" by Walter MacEwen is one of several paintings the Telfair Museum worked hard to get for "Dutch Utopia," an exhibit focusing on an under-studied area of art history. (photo Telfair Museum of Art)
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The motto of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art is "Knowledge Through Beauty," and over the years this small but impassioned Atlanta museum has featured artworks of the highest quality from around the world.
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The motto of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art is "Knowledge Through Beauty," and over the years this small but impassioned Atlanta museum has featured artworks of the highest quality from around the world.
A recent exhibition Rodin: In His Own Words is no exception. If you missed the exhibit, which included thirty-five bronzes and a selection of original letters by the great sculptor, then you’re in for a treat.
In the winter of 1981, Linda Anderson’s spirits were at rock bottom. Her daughter, B.J., had suffered a stroke and needed Anderson’s constant care. But, as she sat by B.J.’s bed, Anderson was filled with a sense of hope and her life changed forever.
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Folk Artist and Memory Painter
“I was horribly depressed. And this presence said that I would receive a gift.”
In the winter of 1981, Linda Anderson’s spirits were at rock bottom. Her daughter, B.J., had suffered a stroke and needed Anderson’s constant care. But, as she sat by B.J.’s bed, Anderson was filled with a sense of hope and her life changed forever. The next morning, Anderson discovered she had a talent to paint, to tell stories from her childhood in colorful resonant images and to connect with a wide audience of art lovers. From moonshine stills to home childbirth, Anderson’s memory paintings depict a North Georgia that has now disappeared.
Anderson was born in Floyd County, in 1941. Her family was poor and the five children worked more than they played or studied. But it was a childhood enriched by community, faith and natural creativity – all of which can be seen in her works, which are filled with action, drama, humor and detail.
Over the years, Anderson has expanded her inspiration to include biblical stories, animals and movie stars. Today, she is considered one of the foremost living memory painters, one of a dying breed of rural folk artists.
Some people are, with apologies to Shakespeare, “snappers-up of unconsidered trifles”. Sharpsburg native, Herb Bridges, fits that description perfectly.
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A priceless discovery: hand-painted movie posters from Hollywood’s Golden Era
Some people are, with apologies to Shakespeare, “snappers-up of unconsidered trifles”. Sharpsburg native, Herb Bridges, fits that description perfectly. A lifelong fan of movie memorabilia, Bridges is best-known for his Gone With The Wind collection – at one time the world’s largest. So, when Bridges heard about a mysterious stash of movie posters that had surfaced in a storage unit in Carrollton, he just had to explore them. They proved to have a connection to his past and to be a glimpse into a little-known aspect of movie history.
The seventy posters were hand-painted at Atlanta’s Loew’s Grand Theatre by staff artists. As a teenager, Bridges worked as an usher at the Loew’s and the posters brought back memories of two very busy, very talented and rather abrupt artists working backstage. In an era when movies changed weekly and rarely re-ran, poster artists generally trashed their work or re-used the materials, making the Carrollton collection, painted by Sid Smith and Charles Reese Collier, rare and exciting. We may never know why these specific posters were saved or by whom, but Bridges is working hard to fill in the gaps in their history.
Over 100 soldiers from Georgia have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number keeps climbing. The families of these soldiers are also casualties of war, and in 2005 a group of Atlanta artists decided to help in the best way they knew how – through their art.
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Over 100 soldiers from Georgia have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number keeps climbing. The families of these soldiers are also casualties of war, and in 2005 a group of Atlanta artists decided to help in the best way they knew how – through their art. Portrait painters Lisa Gleim, Leah Hopkins Henry and Geri Zaki are the founders of the project which became known as “Art from the Heart.” Enlisting the aid of dozens of other artists, they formed an organization called the Atlanta Fine Arts League, which has donated hundreds of hours to paint the portraits of Georgia’s fallen soldiers.
The paintings were initially exhibited at the National Museum of Patriotism in Atlanta in September 2007 and then were given free of charge to the soldiers’ families across Georgia. State of the Arts followed Lisa, Leah and Geri through the process of contacting the families of Army Specialist Jamaal Addison of Lithonia, Army Specialist Justin Johnson of Rome, and First Lieutenant Tyler Brown of Atlanta. In each case the artists formed a bond not only with family members, but also with the soldiers, whom they came to care about in the process of creating their lifelike portraits.
As long as Georgia soldiers continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, the artists of the Atlanta Fine Arts League are committed to continue their project, “Art from the Heart.” To learn more, visit the Atlanta Fine Arts League website.
Everybody knows about the popularity of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” so the Georgia Museum of Art decided to bring the concept closer to home.
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Everybody knows about the popularity of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” so the Georgia Museum of Art decided to bring the concept closer to home. Folks from the Athens area were invited to bring their antique treasures and works of fine art to the museum, where top-of-the-line appraisers from the international firm Bonhams and Butterfields promised to take a look at them.
A lot of people showed up, including kids bearing original Salvador Dali prints and a grandmother-grandson duo sporting a Russian painting which may be the find of the year. Visit the Georgia Museum of Art for more information on their current exhibit and happenings at their website.
Somebody I attended a workshop with called them book works, art works in book form. And that kind of works for me. – Larry B. Thomas
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Somebody I attended a workshop with called them book works, art works in book form. And that kind of works for me. – Larry B. Thomas
Every artist finds the medium that best expresses their ideas, and Larry Thomas's hands led him to artist's books. It's a genre that's unfamiliar to many people, but Thomas is one of its masters. He crafts pop-ups, accordions, scrolls – books of every shape and construction you can imagine – and populates them with collages, created from old books, fliers, posters – any paper ephemera that catch his eye. His books amuse and disturb his viewers with humor and irony. They demand attention and interaction in a way that most art forms do not. And they reflect the quirky personality of this retired print professor. Larry Thomas is one of a kind – and so are his books.
Larry Thomas was recently featured at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum. To see more of the Museum’s works, visit their website.
LOJA is the work of artists Lori Keith Robinson and Jan Clayton Pagratis, who fuse their styles and palettes into a collaborative body of work that explodes with color and energy.
Description:
LOJA is the work of artists Lori Keith Robinson and Jan Clayton Pagratis, who fuse their styles and palettes into a collaborative body of work that explodes with color and energy. The artists paint on the same canvas at the same time, allowing the paintings to grow through their shared instincts and distinctive brush strokes. Each piece is a color-infused interpretation of the Lowcountry as well as a testament to the working relationship and artistic alignment of the artists. The name LOJA is a fusion of their two names, reflecting both the collaboration and creation of a distinct style of its own.
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Hale Woodruff was one of the 20th century's greatest African-American artists.
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(1900-1980)
Hale Woodruff was one of the 20th century's greatest African-American artists. A painter and muralist, he is best known for the Amistad Murals, which depict the history of slavery and are housed at Talladega College in Alabama. He also created a powerful series of murals titled "The Art of the Negro" for Atlanta University Center, which can be seen today in the Trevor Arnett Library at Clark Atlanta University. Woodruff was an outstanding teacher and hoped these murals would inspire future generations of young African-Americans to appreciate their cultural and artistic heritage, beginning in the days of ancient Africa.
A Midwesterner by birth who trained in Paris, Woodruff moved to Atlanta in 1931, where he founded one of the nation's first black art departments at Atlanta University Center. This year the Spelman College Museum honored Woodruff on the 75th anniversary of the art department's founding with a major exhibition of his diverse and powerful work. Before the exhibit opened to the public, State of the Arts followed several of Woodruff's paintings as they went through a process of conservation and restoration. To learn more about Hale Woodruff, look him up on the web.
To find out more about the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, visit their website.
His name is mostly unknown except in musical circles, but Randy Wood definitely qualifies as one of Georgia’s hidden treasures.
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His name is mostly unknown except in musical circles, but Randy Wood definitely qualifies as one of Georgia’s hidden treasures. Wood, a native of Coffee County, has combined masterful woodworking skills with a love of music to become one of the most sought-after fretted instrument-makers in the country, crafting guitars, mandolins and dobros.
Opportunity took Wood to the music centers of Muscle Shoals and Nashville, where he honed his skills repairing and improving instruments for everyone from Elvis to Emmylou to Eric Clapton. In the mid-1970s home called, and Wood is now settled in tiny Bloomingdale, outside Savannah, where his store and workshop draw musicians from near and far. Ever-modest, Wood describes himself as a woodworker who happens to make instruments, but thousands of musicians around the world disagree and consider him a real artist.
The motto of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art is "Knowledge Through Beauty," and over the years this small but impassioned Atlanta museum has featured artworks of the highest quality from around the world.
The motto of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art is "Knowledge Through Beauty," and over the years this small but impassioned Atlanta museum has featured artworks of the highest quality from around the world.
In the winter of 1981, Linda Anderson’s spirits were at rock bottom. Her daughter, B.J., had suffered a stroke and needed Anderson’s constant care. But, as she sat by B.J.’s bed, Anderson was filled with a sense of hope and her life changed forever. 
Some people are, with apologies to Shakespeare, “snappers-up of unconsidered trifles”. Sharpsburg native, Herb Bridges, fits that description perfectly.
Some people are, with apologies to Shakespeare, “snappers-up of unconsidered trifles”. Sharpsburg native, Herb Bridges, fits that description perfectly. A lifelong fan of movie memorabilia, Bridges is best-known for his Gone With The Wind collection – at one time the world’s largest. So, when Bridges heard about a mysterious stash of movie posters that had surfaced in a storage unit in Carrollton, he just had to explore them. They proved to have a connection to his past and to be a glimpse into a little-known aspect of movie history.
Over 100 soldiers from Georgia have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number keeps climbing. The families of these soldiers are also casualties of war, and in 2005 a group of Atlanta artists decided to help in the best way they knew how – through their art. Portrait painters Lisa Gleim, Leah Hopkins Henry and Geri Zaki are the founders of the project which became known as “Art from the Heart.” Enlisting the aid of dozens of other artists, they formed an organization called the Atlanta Fine Arts League, which has donated hundreds of hours to paint the portraits of Georgia’s fallen soldiers.
Everybody knows about the popularity of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” so the Georgia Museum of Art decided to bring the concept closer to home. Folks from the Athens area were invited to bring their antique treasures and works of fine art to the museum, where top-of-the-line appraisers from the international firm Bonhams and Butterfields promised to take a look at them.
LOJA is the work of artists Lori Keith Robinson and Jan Clayton Pagratis, who fuse their styles and palettes into a collaborative body of work that explodes with color and energy. The artists paint on the same canvas at the same time, allowing the paintings to grow through their shared instincts and distinctive brush strokes. Each piece is a color-infused interpretation of the Lowcountry as well as a testament to the working relationship and artistic alignment of the artists. The name LOJA is a fusion of their two names, reflecting both the collaboration and creation of a distinct style of its own.
Hale Woodruff was one of the 20th century's greatest African-American artists. A painter and muralist, he is best known for the Amistad Murals, which depict the history of slavery and are housed at Talladega College in Alabama. He also created a powerful series of murals titled "The Art of the Negro" for Atlanta University Center, which can be seen today in the Trevor Arnett Library at Clark Atlanta University. Woodruff was an outstanding teacher and hoped these murals would inspire future generations of young African-Americans to appreciate their cultural and artistic heritage, beginning in the days of ancient Africa.
His name is mostly unknown except in musical circles, but Randy Wood definitely qualifies as one of Georgia’s hidden treasures. Wood, a native of Coffee County, has combined masterful woodworking skills with a love of music to become one of the most sought-after fretted instrument-makers in the country, crafting guitars, mandolins and dobros.