The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Steve Penley's second book, Ronald Reagan and the American Ideal, was published in 2010.
From Ronald Reagan and the American Ideal, Steve Penley
The Student was painted circa 1937. This was about five years after Hutchinson's first large-scale solo exhibition, which was at the High Musuem of Art in Atlanta. She lived in New York at the time.
Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta acquired this painting, painted circa 1933, in 1934 and prominently displayed it through the 1930s. After many years in storage, the museum deaccessioned the work.
Courtesy of Jason Schoen
Mary E. Hutchinson working on a portrait of Don Sheldon, a personal friend, in 1950.
Mary E. Hutchinson's Dream of Violets is a self-portrait she painted circa 1942.
Courtesy of Hutchinson Estate Private Collection
Joanna Lanza, pictured, was Hutchinson's first partner and primary model from 1931 to 1935.
Courtesy of Hutchinson Estate Private Collection
Don Sheldon was Hutchinson's personal friend. He worked as a window dresser for Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. This portrait was made in 1950.
Courtesy of Hutchinson Estate Private Collection
Mary E. Hutchinson attending the Washington Square Sidewalk Show in New York City, circa 1932. Hutchinson's first solo New York exhibition was in 1934. She moved back to Atlanta in 1945.
Athos Menaboni's 1962 lithograph Mourning Dove (26" x 20") is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta. Menaboni is best known for his detailed paintings of birds, usually portrayed in pairs in their natural habitats.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Athos Menaboni, pictured in 1945, stands in his aviary studying a golden eagle.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Artist Athos Menaboni was renowned for his detailed paintings of birds. He and his wife, Sara, obtained permits to capture rare and protected species for study at their home near Atlanta. Menaboni's 1962 lithograph Bobwhite (26" x 20") is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Artist Athos Menaboni made his first bird painting in 1937, when he painted a cardinal from memory during a lull in commissioned work. His c. 1948 lithograph Cardinals (13 1/4" x 10 1/2") is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Athos Menaboni, renowned for his bird paintings, reached the height of his career during the 1940s and 1950s. His 1956 lithograph Brown Leghorn (22" x 17 1/2") is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
American Bald Eagle by Athos Menaboni is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Lithograph, 23 x 30 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Impressionist painter Hattie Saussy completed In the Hall (oil on board, 20" x 24") in 1927. Saussy spent much of her career in her native Savannah, where she was an active member of the Savannah Art Association.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Hattie Saussy, a Savannah native, established herself as an impressionistic painter following study in Savannah, New York City, and Paris in the 1910s. She is depicted in this undated portrait (oil on canvas, 21 7/8" x 18") by fellow Savannah artist Christopher Murphy Jr.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Impressionist painter Hattie Saussy's undated Stream in Wooded Landscape (oil on canvas board, 15 7/8" x 11 7/8") is one example of the landscape paintings for which she is well known. Saussy traveled throughout the region of her native Savannah, painting landscapes outdoors, from the 1920s through the 1970s.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Hattie Saussy painted Portrait—Girl in Red (oil on board, 24" x 20") in 1935. A Savannah native, Saussy painted numerous portraits, as well as impressionistic landscapes, during her long career.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Jackson Lee Nesbitt created the lithograph Auction Barn (15" x 19 1/2") in Atlanta with master printer Wayne Kline in 1989. The image is a composite of several sketches of Arkansas cattle auctions in the 1940s. Nesbitt added a Coca-Cola bottle, which sits on a rafter behind the auctioneer.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Jackson Lee Nesbitt, pictured circa 1955, was a native of the Midwest and a well-regarded printmaker and painter for much of the twentieth century. In 1957 he moved to Atlanta and gave up his art to work in advertising, but in 1987 he resumed printmaking at Rolling Stone Press in Atlanta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Jackson Lee Nesbitt's 1990 lithograph The Matthew W. Johnston Family (12 1/4" x 15") is composed of a mother and daughter whom Nesbitt knew during his childhood in Oklahoma. The man in the image was a model from the Kansas City Art Institute, where Nesbitt studied from 1933 to 1938.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
The encaustic painting "Three Flags" (1958) is representative of the distinctive style and subject matter that characterized Jasper Johns's work during the peak of the pop art movement. Johns mixed pigment with wax in order to achieve a faster drying time and create a textured, layered surface that emphasizes the artist's strokes against the canvas. The three canvases are stacked on top of each other, projecting into a three dimensional space to create an effect that contrasts with centuries of classical presentations of art.
Image from Wikimedia
Since 1895 artists have convened to exhibit the most important works of their day at the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy. Though Jasper Johns was first included at the twenty-ninth Biennale, in 1958, this image depicts the unloading of one of his paintings for the thirty-second Venice Biennale, held in 1964.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Jasper Johns donated the 1994 lithograph American Center Paris, 1994 (42" x 36 1/16") to Brenau University Galleries in honor of his aunts Gladys and Eunice Johns, both alumnae of the university, whose childhood images appear in the upper right corner.
Art (c) Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y. Courtesy of Brenau University Galleries
A statue of William Jasper, a Revolutionary War hero who was killed during the Siege of Savannah in 1779, stands on Madison Square in Savannah. The town of Jasper, the seat of Pickens County, was named in his honor.
Image from Disc wheel
Savannah artist Christopher Murphy Jr.'s undated painting Mosquito Fleet (oil on board, 11" x 13 3/4") depicts the vessels used by African American fishermen along the Georgia coast. Murphy is known for creating paintings and etchings that capture the activity in the streets and along the waterfront of his native Savannah.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Christopher Murphy Jr., captured in this undated self-portrait (oil on board, 23 3/4" x 18"), was a prominent Savannah artist and teacher for much of the twentieth century. He is known particularly for his depictions of Savannah daily life and architecture, as well as for his portraiture.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Christopher Murphy Jr., a Savannah native and artist, painted a number of portraits, such as his undated Green Kimono (oil on canvas, 22" x 18"). The painting's dark background and the serene expression of the sitter contrast with the vibrant pattern of her kimono.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Joe Street, Savannah (charcoal on paper, 9 3/4" x 15 1/2"), an undated etching by Savannah artist Christopher Murphy Jr., was chosen in 1935 by the Print Club of Rochester in New York as its second annual presentation print.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Christopher Murphy Jr.'s undated drawing Different Levels (graphite on paper, 10" x 7 3/4") was the source for one of the thirty-seven illustrations Murphy created for the book Savannah (1947), which was written by Savannah historian Walter Charlton Hartridge.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
The subject of Black Man Seated on a Chair (1910), a sepia wash on paper by Savannah artist Lucile Desbouillons Murphy, may have been an employee of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, where Murphy studied under Carl Brandt in the 1890s.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Margaret Augusta Murphy, the daughter of Savannah artists Lucile Desbouillons and Christopher P. H. Murphy, painted the watercolor Street Scene, Savannah between 1930 and 1940. Her watercolor technique developed under the tutelage of Eliot O'Hara, a visiting artist at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Rudolph Valentino Bostic, a self-taught artist from Savannah, painted Fighting Angels between 1991 and 1997. Bostic is known for rendering biblical and popular culture scenes through the technique of chiaroscuro, which uses light and shade to create depth.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
Laura Pope Forrester, a self-taught artist from south Georgia, created one of the state's first outdoor art environments during the 1940s and 1950s. Her concrete figures, depicting such historical and literary personages as Nancy Hart and Scarlett O'Hara, came to be known as "Mrs. Pope's Museum."
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Photograph by Marty Stupich..
William Rogers, a preacher and self-taught artist from Darien, carved this wooden walking staff around 1935. Rogers is known for his walking sticks and animal carvings, which are reminiscent of African art.
Courtesy of Columbus Museum. Museum purchase made possible by the Endowment Fund in honor of D. A. Turner. 87.15.165
Arthur "Pete" Dilbert, a woodworker from the Savannah region, carves a dragon in preparation for an exhibition. Dilbert is well known for his canes, as well as relief sculptures and freestanding figures such as birds and alligators.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
The Devil and the Drunk Man, a sculpture by self-taught artist Dilmus Hall, is pictured in 1986. Hall created a sculptural yard at his home in Athens, featuring concrete, metal, and wood figures, as well as drawings inspired by the Old Testament.
Courtesy of Judith McWillie
Howard Finster, a self-taught artist from Chattooga County, sits atop his "Paradise Garden," a sculpture garden filled with mixed-media creations next to his home in Pennville. Finster began work on the garden in 1961.
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Photograph by Bud Lee..
The cover art for Reckoning (1984), the second album by rock group R.E.M, features a painting by folk artist Howard Finster.
Photograph by Bradley Loos
Realist painter Alexander Brook's undated work Dispossessed (watercolor on paper, 14 1/4" x 16 3/8") depicts the dignity of a desperate family by capturing the expression of the woman in a pensive moment, amid what appear to be bleak prospects.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Alexander Brook, a native of New York, was a prominent figurative painter during the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1938 and 1948 he lived sporadically in Savannah, where he executed numerous sketches that became the basis for paintings exhibited nationwide.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Alexander Brook's undated sketch of a woman living in the Yamacraw district of Savannah was used for the central figure in the foreground of his finished work, Georgia Jungle. Brook was awarded first prize at the Carnegie International exhibition for the painting in 1939.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Alexander Brook, a prominent New York painter, was fascinated with the rural landscape and vernacular architecture on the outskirts of Savannah. The horizontal line of the leaning shacks in his undated painting Savannah Chickens and Shacks (oil on canvas, 12" x 26") is enhanced by far-off smoke as the chickens give the only living presence to the scene.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Hilda Belcher, a prominent artist, painted Run Little Chillun, Run, Fo' de Devil's Done Loose (oil on board, 13 7/8" x 11 3/4") in 1931. Belcher, a native of Vermont, attended services at several African American churches around Savannah during her frequent visits to the city. In this work, which was also the basis for a 1935 oil painting of the same name, she captures the energy of a Savannah choir.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Hilda Belcher (left) poses with her mother, Martha Wood Belcher, in 1913 at Daventry, England. Hilda Belcher, a native of Vermont, traveled frequently to Georgia during her career to sketch scenes, particularly in Savannah, and to paint commissioned portraits.
Reprinted by permission of the Belcher family
Nell Choate Jones's Court Day, Marietta (charcoal, pencil, ink, and gouache on tracing paper, 19" x 24") depicts a crowd of people, shown without individual features, as they congregate around the courthouse, which is barely visible in the background. Action and gesture take precedence in this vividly colored, undated work.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
The oil painting Georgia Red Clay (25" x 30") was made by Georgia native Nell Choate Jones in 1946. The painting exemplifies several aspects of her style, including strong contours and shapes, as well as a modernist emphasis on color.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Nell Choate Jones, pictured at her 100th birthday party in 1979, was a prominent artist whose paintings were exhibited widely from 1925 until 1979. A Hawkinsville native, Jones drew inspiration for her work from southern landscapes and culture.
Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas S. Potts
Hawkinsville native Nell Choate Jones painted Cotton Blooms (mixed media on paper, 21 3/8" x 17 7/8") circa 1936. This still life depicts a plant commonly seen in Georgia but rarely found in the colder climates where the artist spent most of her long life.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Sea Dive (monoprint with African fabric collage, 29 1/2" x 20 3/4"), created in 1989 by Atlanta native Emma Amos, depicts a clothed figure hovering in midair above a body of water, which is divided by a strip of African fabric. Action lines in the air and water enhance the sense of the figure's movement.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
This glass mosaic bench (1996) forms part of an art installation designed by artist Emma Amos for the Ralph David Abernathy Memorial Plaza in Atlanta, which commemorates the legacy of the civil rights leader. Amos's installation also includes a bronze chair and a gazebo.
Courtesy of Emma Amos
Emma Amos, an Atlanta native and acclaimed artist, worked in a variety of media, including printmaking, painting, textiles, and collage. Her work explored issues of politics, race, gender, and cultural history. Amos was a professor and former chair at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Courtesy of Emma Amos
Emma Amos, an acclaimed artist and Atlanta native, painted Does Black Wear Off? (oil on canvas, African fabric, and photo transfers, 90" x 56") in 1999. A cloth border imprinted with hands and minstrel's white gloves encloses a strip of woven fabric from Burkina Faso. The multi-hued female figure wears a minstrel's black face with images of figurines repeated around her.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Children's Mardi Gras (oil on canvas, 29 1/2" x 34 1/2") was painted by Andree Ruellan in 1949. Although seemingly playful, the painting is executed in a dark palette and is more somber than the artist's work prior to World War II.
Courtesy of Columbus Museum. Museum purchase made possible by Norman S. Rothschild in honor of his parents, Aleen and Irwin B. Rothschild
Andree Ruellan's mural Spring in Georgia, commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts, was installed at the Lawrenceville post office in 1942. Today the mural is housed in the R. G. Stephens Federal Building in Athens.
Courtesy of U.S. General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service, Fine Arts Collection.
Artist Andree Ruellan's Morning on the River (gouache on paper, 12 1/4" x 18 1/2"), executed in 1940, captures the Savannah River in morning light and includes several people and shanties along the water's edge.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Artist and Georgia native Eddie Owens Martin, also known as St. EOM, poses at Pasaquan, the visionary art site that he established in Marion County around 1957.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society
The studio building of folk artist St. EOM (Eddie Owens Martin) is attached to the original family farmhouse. Every surface of St. EOM's estate, Pasaquan, in Marion County is covered by his art, inside and out.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society, www.pasaquan.com
The walls of Pasaquan, the estate of the Buena Vista folk artist known as St. EOM, vary in height, width, and length. They are created with wire mesh and concrete in detailed relief.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society, www.pasaquan.com
The folk artist known as St. EOM (Eddie Owens Martin) was fascinated by the human face. The artwork at Pasaquan, Martin's Marion County estate, includes more than 100 faces.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society, www.pasaquan.com
The folk artist Eddie Owens Martin, also known as St. EOM, constructed his visionary art site Pasaquan in Marion County in the 1950s. Martin's work, including this hammered tin wall at Pasaquan, reveals the influence of international icons and images.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society, www.pasaquan.com
Artist Larry Connatser's untitled painting (acrylic on wood, 13" x 13"), created circa 1980, is a complex composition containing numerous figures in an architectural setting. Identifiable furniture is juxtaposed with fantasy elements.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Larry Connatser, a self-taught artist who spent much of his life in Georgia, created 2,500 paintings, 800 drawings, and numerous murals over the course of his career. Hallmarks of his expressionistic style include bright colors, fantasy figures, and dreamlike spaces.
Courtesy of the Joan Cobitz Estate
A section of the mural at the Decatur MARTA station (paint on architectural brick, twin murals each 66' x 26') are visible to passengers at both the concourse and platform levels. The mural was created by Georgia artist Larry Connatser in 1981 and depicts stylized renderings of the mountains and sea as vacation destinations.
Image from Joel Mann
Of his twin murals painted at the MARTA station in Decatur, artist Larry Connatser explained, "Stylized fantasies of the two favorite American vacations--escapes to the mountain and sea, were my theme. . . . A stylized ocean and mountain flowers enhance these expressions."
Courtesy of MARTA
All That Jazz Party, a mural designed by artist Larry Connatser and created with the help of students in 1980, covered the floor of the original library in Poetter Hall at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The mural remains intact at Poetter Hall, which today houses administrative offices.
Courtesy of the Savannah College of Art and Design
#1764 (1974) by Larry Connatser is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Acrylic, 21 x 24 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
#2149 (1977) by Larry Connatser is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Acrylic, 26 x 26 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Untitled by Larry Connatser is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Acrylic, 48 1/4 x 48 1/4 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
William O. Golding, a Savannah native who spent most of his life at sea, created around sixty drawings of ships and ports while a patient at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Savannah. He completed St. Yacht Thelma, Bangor, Maine, June 12, 1935 (crayon and graphite on paper, 9" x 12") in 1935.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
William O. Golding's St. Yacht Ramona (crayon and pencil on paper, 8 3/4 " x 11 3/4") depicts ships in American waters and features a lighthouse and flags, both recurring images in the artist's work.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
African American artist William O. Golding drew his Merchant Ship—Scarlet (crayon and pencil on paper, 9" x 12") in 1934. In a variation on his distinctive image of the sun partially hidden by a cloud, a recurring image in the artist's work, Golding places the sun at the horizon in this drawing.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Playing with Reds (Camellias) (oil on canvas, 25 1/8" x 32 7/8"), an oil painting by Emma Cheves Wilkins, was purchased by the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (later Telfair Museums) in Savannah in 1931, around the time of the work's completion. Wilkins began her training at the Telfair and then studied in Paris, France, before returning to Savannah.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
Lucy May Stanton made several paintings of "Aunt Liza," one of her neighbors in Athens. In each, Aunt Liza is shown with a brooding expression, dressed in a headscarf and shawl. The solid, modeled forms of the figure, drapery, and furniture are achieved with an economy of large brushstrokes.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Frances Forbes Heyn
Gari Melchers's oil painting The Unpretentious Garden (33 5/8" x 40 1/2") was created around 1905 and is an example of the artist's impressionistic style.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
Harriet Powers finished her Bible Quilt around 1886 in Athens. The third panel in the second row depicts the story of Jacob's dream, when "he lay on the ground." Enslaved African Americans identified with Jacob, for he was homeless, hunted, and weary of his journey.
Courtesy of National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Ben Shute, cofounder of the Atlanta College of Art, arrived in Atlanta in 1928. He played an important role in that city's art community as a teacher, portrait painter, and chair of the Southeastern Annual Exhibition. His Ajiji, Mexico (watercolor and ink on paper) was made in 1951.
Courtesy of Betty Plummer Woodruff Collection
The carving on Stone Mountain depicts the Confederate icons Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. Commissioned by the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the sculptor Gutzon Borglum began work on the relief in 1915. He was fired in 1925, and Augustus Lukeman completed the carving.
Photograph by Mark Griffin, Wikimedia
Husband and wife Malcolm Bell Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell pose in 1938. Two years later, the couple's photographs were published in Drums and Shadows, a photographic study of African American culture along the Georgia coast commissioned by the Federal Writers' Project.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Georgia Sunset (watercolor on paper, 15" x 22") was painted by Eliot O'Hara, a teacher at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (later Telfair Museums) in Savannah during the 1930s. The painting was acquired by the Telfair in 1934. O'Hara also authored several books on watercolor technique.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
Lamar Dodd, founder of the art school at the University of Georgia in Athens, painted Copperhill (oil and egg tempera on linen canvas) in 1938. The painting is characteristic of the evocative landscapes that dominated his work in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. Extended loan from the University of Georgia Foundation; Gift of Mary and Lamar Dodd GMOA 1974.3F
This detail of Robin Hood appears on the mural at the main branch of the Savannah public library on Bull Street. The mural, which was painted in 1934 by husband and wife artists William Hoffmann and Martina Steere, depicts Robin Hood before the queen's court. Originally painted for the children's room, the mural was restored in 2000 and is found today in the library's auditorium.
Courtesy of Live Oak Public Libraries
This detail of the king and queen appears on the mural at the main branch of the Savannah public library on Bull Street. The mural, painted in 1934 by husband and wife artists William Hoffmann and Martina Steere, depicts Robin Hood before the queen's court.
Courtesy of Live Oak Public Libraries
This detail of the queen's court appears on the mural at the main branch of the Savannah public library on Bull Street. The mural, painted in 1934 by husband and wife artists William Hoffmann and Martina Steere, depicts Robin Hood before the queen's court.
Courtesy of Live Oak Public Libraries
Inspired by the Mexican muralists, Hale Woodruff, a nationally recognized African American artist, completed three mural series over the course of his career. Art of the Negro was completed around 1951 and hangs in the gallery at Clark Atlanta University, where Woodruff taught art for fifteen years. His other murals are entitled The Amistad Mutiny (1939) and The Negro in California History (1949).
Courtesy of Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries
Anna Hunter, an art critic for the Savannah News-Press, took up painting during the late 1940s, while in her fifties. Her Recessional (oil on canvas) was completed around 1949 and is housed by Telfair Museums in Savannah.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
The Marion County folk artist known as St. EOM built Pasaquan, a complex of decorated concrete buildings, beginning in the mid-1950s. He used a variety of materials in his work, including decorated tin, wire, wood, brick, roofing shingles, and floor tile.
Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society, www.pasaquan.com
Hale Woodruff, a member of the Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University) faculty from 1931 until 1946, stands before one of his murals. Woodruff trained in Paris, France, and became a nationally known printmaker, draftsman, and painter during his career.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information photograph collection, Photograph by Arthur Rothstein.
Hale Woodruff's 1953 work Celestial Gate (oil on canvas, 50" x 40") hangs in the gallery of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. During the 1930s and 1940s, Woodruff, a prominent African American artist, was a member of Atlanta University's faculty and taught classes at Spelman.
Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Ben Shute, a prominent Atlanta artist, is well known for his landscape portraits of such diverse locales as Mexico, Italy, and the Georgia coast. Ostia, Italy (1962), casein and ink on paper.
Courtesy of Betty Plummer Woodruff Collection
Acclaimed artist Ben Shute, a cofounder of the Atlanta College of Art, lived in Atlanta from 1928 until his death in 1986. His 1940 work Night Carnival, Franklin, N.C., casein and ink on paper, is housed in the permanent collection of the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Betty Plummer Potts Woodruff GMOA 2004.7
Acclaimed artist Ben Shute, a Wisconsin native, lived for the majority of his career in Atlanta, where he earned a reputation as an accomplished portrait artist. His Otis with Bible, charcoal on paper, was completed in 1940.
Courtesy of Georgia Musuem of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Betty Plummer Potts Woodruff GMOA 2004.6
Beginning in the early 1950s, Atlanta artist Ben Shute traveled to coastal Maine, where he painted elements of the landscape using a shifting cubist perspective. Deserted House, Port Clyde, Maine (1965), casein and ink on paper.
Courtesy of Betty Plummer Woodruff Collection
The Hiker (1980) by Nellie Mae Rowe is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Crayon, 29 x 24 1/2 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Nellie Mae Rowe stands in front of her home in Vinings. After her husband's death in 1948, Rowe began decorating both the interior and exterior of the house with drawings, dolls, and recycled objects. Discovered by artists and collectors during the 1970s, Rowe's work is exhibited today in museums around the country.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mattie Lou O'Kelley, a "memory painter" from Jackson County, completed her oil painting Spring Vegetable Scene in 1968. In 1962, at the age of fifty-four, O'Kelley began painting scenes from memories of her early life; like other memory painters, her subject matter was often rural in nature.
Reprinted by permission of High Museum of Art, Atlanta; 75.37
Beverly Buchanan constructed her 1990 sculpture Flye Town (13 3/4" x 45" x 12") from wood, metal, and paint as a tribute to the creativity and resourcefulness that rural southern farmers bring to the use of available materials.
Image from Allison Meier
The painter Lamar Dodd was influenced by the Ashcan School movement, which emphasized scenes of everyday life. As one reviewer said of Dodd's first solo show in New York in 1932, his paintings, so consciously anti-academic, evoke "Georgia, Georgia, Georgia."
Courtesy of LaGrange College
The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, designed by notable architect Michael Graves, offers numerous lectures, workshops, and performances as part of its educational program. Around 20,000 Georgia children visit the museum each year, and many more participate in Art Odyssey, the museum's outreach program.
Image from Gary Todd
The High Museum of Art in Midtown Atlanta is one of the most important art museums in the Southeast. The High's permanent collection includes more than 11,000 objects. Its current building was opened in 1983 and designed by architect Richard Meier.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
The Tubman African American Museum in Macon is the largest of its kind in the Southeast. Founded in 1981, it has grown from a local attraction into a major collection of African American art, artifacts, and documents for national visitors.
Courtesy of Tubman African American Museum.
The Columbus Museum is the second-largest art museum in Georgia. Its collections are focused on American art and on the history of the Chattahoochee River Valley.
Courtesy of Columbus Museum
Beverly Buchanan's undated Self-Portrait with Figure and Chicken (marker and pen on paper, 4 11/16" x 6 3/16") includes images associated with the artist's childhood memories of rural Georgia.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Homage (1989) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Mixed media (oil collage), 35 3/4 x 29 1/2 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Benny Andrews, a native of Plainview, began experimenting with collage as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1950s. His 1994 work Preacher, oil and collage on canvas (48 x 28 inches), is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art. Reprinted by permission of Benny Andrews
Hmmmmm (date unknown) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 15 x 11 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Old Woman Eating by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 17 1/2 x 11 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Plower (1990) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 22 1/4 x 15 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Rock (1990) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 22 x 15 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Study #35 for Symbols (date unknown) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 15 x 13 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
The Good Life (date unknown) by Benny Andrews is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Pen and ink, 17 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Though her early work was realistic, Alma Thomas is best known for the brightly colored, mosaic-like style of abstraction that she adopted in her seventies. Acrylic on canvas, 71 5/8" x 52."
Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum
This mosaic-like painting by Alma Thomas is an abstract representation of a plant nursery, as seen from above. Thomas was especially influenced by displays of azaleas she saw in Washington, D.C. Acrylic on canvas.
Courtesy of Columbus Museum
Spheroid (Figured Tulipwood) (1989) by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood, 16 x 23 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Globe (1989) by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood, 6 x 10 (diameter) inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Bowl (Saturn) (1989) by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood, 10 x 8 (diameter) inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Bowl by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood (walnut), 5 x 8 1/2 (diameter) inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Bowl by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood (pine), 9 1/2 x 5 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Bowl by Ed Moulthrop is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Wood (pine)
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Earl McCutchen, an artist and instructor at the University of Georgia, used such glassworking techniques as slumping, fusing, and laminating to create plates and bowls. The photograph of this round plate was found in a 1960 issue of Craft Horizons; the date of its creation is unknown.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art
Earl McCutchen, working on a ceramic vase. McCutchen taught at the University of Georgia art department for more than forty years.
Photograph by Wiley Sanderson
These ceramic mugs were created by Earl McCutchen, who was an expert in glaze properties and methods of glaze application.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia
The Brenau Art Galleries in Gainesville displayed a number of R. A. Miller's signature whirligigs in 2006. The exhibition, titled R. A. Miller: A Tribute, opened in February 2006, a month before the artist's death.
Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Elaine de Kooning began painting her Bacchus series during her tenure as Lamar Dodd Visiting Professor (1976-78) at the University of Georgia. Bacchus No. 81 (acrylic on canvas, 65 x 45 inches) was completed in 1983.
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Marjorie and Edmond Luyckx, in Honor of Lamar Dodd, GMOA 1988.9
The entrance to Howard Finster's outdoor sculpture garden, Paradise Garden, in Chattooga County features a concrete wall embedded with small toys, shards of glass and pottery, and various other found objects.
Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia
In Visions of Another World—September 15, 1990 (1990) by Howard Finster is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Enamel paint, 24 x 28 inches, with frame
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
In 1982 Howard Finster acquired a small church adjacent to his Paradise Garden in Chattooga County and transformed it into his "World's Folk Art Church." Pictured in 2014, the church and garden fell into serious disrepair after Finster's death, but restoration efforts began in 2010.
Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Howard Finster's mural Jacob's Ladder is painted on the side of a building at Paradise Garden, his large outdoor art project in Chattooga County.
Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Angel #700.033 (1987) by Howard Finster is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Mixed media, 49 x 12 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Visions of Other Worlds in Outer Space Beyond #13,000.494 (1989) by Howard Finster is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Mixed media, 23 x 14 inches, with frame
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Howard Finster's Paradise Garden, a large outdoor art installation in Chattooga County, features this inscription in numerous locations: I took the pieces you threw away / Put them together by night and day / Washed by rain and dried by sun / A million pieces all in one.
Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Lamar Dodd painted Bargain Basement in 1937.
Courtesy of the Morris Museum of Art
Lamar Dodd painted Washerwoman in 1933. Oil on canvas, 24" x 31 1/2"
Courtesy of Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange College
The painter Lamar Dodd at work in his studio in the 1970s. Dodd was the most influential Georgia artist of his generation.
Courtesy of LaGrange College
The artist Lamar Dodd pictured with one of his paintings in the late 1970s. Dodd was the most recognized artist of his generation from the state of Georgia, a passionate advocate for the arts, and a skilled administrator.
Courtesy of LaGrange College
Anchored Boats (1989) by Lamar Dodd is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Watercolor, 30 1/4 x 24 1/4 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Gunnison's Gorge by Lamar Dodd is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Print, 27 x 20 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Rocks in Nature's Garden (1963) by Lamar Dodd is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Watercolor, 28 x 20 1/2 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
San Marco, Rain (1972) by Lamar Dodd is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Watercolor, 18 x 23 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
St. Mark's Cathedral (1956) by Lamar Dodd was one of a series of paintings the Georgia artist made of the famous Venetian cathedral. It is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Print, 16 x 24 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Venice Reflection, Rain (1958) by Lamar Dodd is part of Georgia's State Art Collection. Oil, 20 x 30 inches
Courtesy of Georgia Council for the Arts, Georgia's State Art Collection.
Stanton's professional career as an artist began in Atlanta in 1896, with a commission for three miniature portraits of soprano Adelina Patti. She went on to paint many of the distinguished citizens of Georgia, including Atlanta mayor Charles Collier (ca. 1899), Joel Chandler Harris (1906, 1914), and Howell Cobb, whom she portrayed as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Lucy M. Stanton Papers.
Lucy May Stanton created works in oil, pastel, and watercolor, and she is best known as a painter of portrait miniatures in watercolor on ivory. Her mature style in miniature painting is distinguished by her innovative use of broad washes, and her portraits, both miniature and full-scale, are powerful evocations of character, expression, and mood.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Lucy M. Stanton Papers.
