| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
October Issue 2007
Lowcountry Artists Gallery in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Anne Hightower-Patterson
Lowcountry
Artists Gallery in Charleston, SC, will present the show
Lowcountry, a series of paintings by Anne Hightower-Patterson,
on view from Oct. 1 - 31, 2007. The exhibit will feature
traditional watercolors and oils by this award winning artist. This
is the first show of Hightower-Patterson's work since the late
90's.
"The Lowcountry is more than a place. It is spiritual. It is sensual. It is layers of smells, sights, people and places," says Hightower-Patterson. Growing up in the Lowcountry has formed the artistic vision of Hightower-Patterson. Born in Charleston in 1950, she spent her youth playing in the marshes and the creeks of Mount Pleasant. "I can remember my Daddy painting marshes in watercolor before I was six years old. He took lessons on the second floor of the old hardware store (now the POST HOUSE) from William Halsey, painting alongside watercolor greats Chevis Clark and Arthur Street.
As a student at Moultrie High School, Hightower-Patterson studied with the late Virginia Fouche' Bolton. There she was fed a diet of the Charleston Renaissance artists, especially Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. "Mrs. Bolton was a demanding, yet skilled teacher who focused her students on the elements of design first. Every year we spent six weeks studying color, shape, and perspective. We had to pass those tests before we could move on to doing any painting," says Hightower-Patterson. Of course, Bolton was well known for her Lowcountry paintings as well.
In the intervening years, Hightower-Patterson as gone on to win multiple awards in both state and national shows. She has achieved notoriety for her colorful watercolors, most recently winning second place in the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Show in May of this year.
There is no irony in the fact that her first art award was given by the Charleston Artist Guild when she was just 15 years old. The "Alfred Hutty Award" was the top award given to students in the Charleston area. Hutty was the leader of the Charleston Renaissance movement which produced a number of rich images of the Lowcountry and her people during the 1930's and 1940's. He was primarily an etcher, but also painted wonderful watercolors.
Hightower-Patterson now resides in Columbia, SC, but comes to the Lowcountry often. Her parents still live in their family home in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. "Every time I come home, my eyes are filled with the beauty of the Lowcountry. From the grandness of the homes on White Point gardens to the roadside stands on the Sea Islands we live in one of the most glorious places in the world. I had to leave home to realize the beauty of this place. Last year, I traveled to the Mediterranean and saw the great cities of Italy. Yet when I came home, I found the beauty of Charleston as glorious as any of those places," added Hightower-Patterson.
Now, forty years later, the Lowcountry is the subject of this collection of work by Hightower-Patterson. Images from the marshes of Edisto to the streets of the peninsula are a part of the work presented in this show.
For further information check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/577-9295 or visit (www.lowcountrartists.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 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© 2007 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.