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January Issue
2011
University of South Carolina Press
in Columbia, SC, Releases Book of Letters by Anna Heyward Taylor
The University of South Carolina Press
in Columbia, SC, has published, Selected Letters of Anna Heyward
Taylor, South Carolina Artist and World Traveler, edited by
Edmund R. Taylor and Alexander Moore.
Heavily illustrated with representative color and black-and-white
artwork, the selected correspondence of Anna Heyward Taylor (18791956)
captures the globe-trotting adventures of an intrepid South Carolina
artist and a guiding spirit of the Charleston Renaissance. These
letters and articles frame her intriguing life against the changing
events of twentieth-century American art history and global events
to illustrate how this acclaimed South Carolina original came
to view and be viewed by the world.
The highly skilled artworks of Anna Heyward Taylor - especially
her celebrated woodblock prints and watercolors - are well known
to students and collectors of southern art. However, Taylor was
also a dedicated letter writer and persistent student of art.
Edited by her descendant Edmund R. Taylor and Alexander Moore,
this first publication of Taylor's letters provides a new dimension
to the artist's life and works.
A native of Columbia, SC, Taylor received professional art training
from William Merritt Chase in New York and B. J. O. Nordfeldt
in New England. In Japan she studied the works of the classical
printmakers and developed an appreciation of textile arts. Drawn
to roam abroad, Taylor traveled to the Far East before World War
I, served in the American Red Cross in wartime France and Germany,
and visited Europe both before and after the Great War. She also
made lengthy excursions to British Guiana, the Virgin Islands,
and Mexico to study and create colorful works of art in several
media: watercolors, woodblock prints, and textiles.
Taylor traveled to British Guiana in the capacity of scientific
illustrator, and her correspondence and art from such excursions
are emblematic of her well-informed interest in botany. Between
the wars and amid her travels, Taylor worked and studied at the
renowned artists' colony in Provincetown, MA. In 1929 she settled
in Charleston, SC, and became one of the key participants in the
Charleston Renaissance. In the mid-1930s, Taylor spent time at
an artists' colony in Taxco, Mexico, fully immersed in the bohemian
life among the artists, which she keenly describes with an anthropologist's
eye. Wherever she traveled, lived, or worked, Taylor made her
life a celebration of innovation, independence, and creativity-traits
that illuminate the vibrant character of her chronicles of exotic
people, places, and events.
The accompanying illustrations and photographs add a visual element
to the remarkable story of this versatile artist. The introduction
and extensive annotations by southern historian Alexander Moore
establish a broader place for Taylor in American art history and
the intellectual life of the twentieth century.
Edmund R. Taylor is the nephew of Anna Heyward Taylor. A graduate
of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins
University Medical School, he practiced surgery in Columbia, SC,
for thirty-five years. He has been the owner and curator of Anna
Heyward Taylor's letters, which he recently donated to the South
Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.
Moore is a historian of colonial South Carolina, documentary editor,
and student of southern art history. The former director of the
South Carolina Historical Society, Moore is an acquisitions editor
at the University of South Carolina Press and the author or editor
of several works on southern history.
"Anna Heyward Taylor has a special place at the Columbia
Museum of Art, where our collection is home to more than thirty
of her works, including watercolors, prints, and drawings. With
close ties to the artist's family for more than six decades, the
Museum celebrates the publication of this monumental volume of
letters highlighting the spirit and talents of this remarkable
woman. Taylor certainly was of independent mind, and her worldly
travels and South Carolina roots infused her celebrated work with
deeply felt convictions, an embrace of color, and a love of nature.
The correspondence and illustrations collected here, coupled with
the editors' introduction and annotations, bring Taylor's work
and world vibrantly to life for her aficionados and those being
introduced to her here for the first time," says Karen Brosius,
executive director of the Columbia Museum of Art.
"Admirably researched and edited, this compilation of letters
allows readers to join Taylor on her artistic journey. Beginning
under the tutelage of William Merritt Chase in Holland, Taylor's
sojourns to Europe, the Orient, South America, and Mexico are
carefully recorded in letters addressed to close family members
and fellow American artists. The rich commentary provides valuable
insights into her artistic development, her circle of friends
and influences, as well as her feelings towards the new and unfamiliar
cultures she encounters," adds Angela D. Mack, executive
director and chief curator at the Gibbes Museum of Art.
The book is 7" x 10", 360 pages, with 79 illustrations.
(ISBN 978-1-57003-945-4, cloth, $39.95).
The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibit,
Anna Heyward Taylor: World Traveler, on view from Jan.
14 through July 17, 2011.
For further information contact Jonathan Haupt at 803/777-2021
or e-mail to (jhaupt@sc.edu). To order this book call 800/768-2500
or visit (www.uscpress.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.