February Issue 2001
Hickory Museum Of Art, in Hickory, NC, Presents Three New Exhibitions
The Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC, is presenting three new exhibitions which are sure to appeal to a wide range of visitors. Celebrate our State: North Carolina Artworks from the Permanent Collection, will be on view through May 20 in the Museum's Coe Gallery; Early Photography from the Lafavore Collection, will be on view through Feb. 25 in the Museum's Shuford Gallery; and the exhibition, Claude Howell: Coastal Scenes from St. Johns Museum of Art, will be on view in the Mezzanie Gallery through Mar. 20.
Richard Ritter
During the exhibition, Celebrate our State: North Carolina Artworks from the Permanent Collection, small groups of artworks will turn the Museum's main gallery into several small galleries. Highlights include: paintings by Herb Jackson, Maud Gatewood, Minnie Rhinehardt, Elliott Daingerfield and HMA founder Paul Whitener; examples of Seagrove, Jugtown and Catawba Valley pottery styles; hand-carved animals by folk artist Leroy Person; and works by some of the state's finest glass artists.
These and other works by North Carolina artists - which represent 25 percent of HMA's permanent collection - reflect the state's artistic diversity. "Some artists in this exhibition are classically trained; others, particularly the potters and craftsmen, work in artistic traditions and styles passed down from one generation to the next," said HMA Curator Mary Agnes Beach.
Traditionally, Beach said, NC artists do not favor one style or medium. "This exhibition shows that people in all levels of society have been involved in the making and consuming of visual art," she said. "It is a small window that provides a closer look at the state's cultural heritage, as well as an expanded definition of what North Carolina truly is."
The exhibit includes special text panels to help younger audiences understand and enjoy the works, as well as learn more about some of the state's most renowned artists.
Daguerreotype
- Portrait of a Girl
The Hickory Museum of Art is the first public venue for the daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes and albumen prints assembled in the exhibition Early Photography from the Lafavore Collection. The exhibition is sponsored by Unifour Anesthesia Associates, P.A.
The dark red walls of HMA's newly-remodeled Shuford Gallery accent the exhibition's Victorian look. On loan to the Museum from local physician Paul Lafavore, the collection provides a dual history lesson, educating visitors about early photography techniques and providing an intimate look at 19th-century life.
Lafavore shares his collection with Museum visitors to help them learn more about early photographic techniques. "Early photography is an art form often unknown or undershown," he said. "This exhibition shows the roots of what led to the development of television, motion pictures and modem photography."
Lafavore believes photography is history, the only way to truly see back in time. "One gains a great insight into a time period by examining the objects of everyday life from that period," Lafavore said. "When collectors worry that they have too much 'stuff,' they should remember this quote from Thomas Jefferson: 'It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which occur to him for preserving documents relating to the history of our country."'
Lafavore started his photography collection while he was a high school student in Portland, Maine. The impetus to collect grew from a general interest in the American Northeast and in the Civil War, an era in which photography played a significant role. As Lafavore's interest in photography grew, his collection became more focused on the daguerreotype, the first commercially-available photographic process introduced in France in 1839.
"As I became interested in the various complex processes used to create these early photos, I was particularly drawn to the daguerreotype process because these images are unique in both the process and quality of the image," Lafavore said.
Daguerreotypes are delicate images made on small copper plates, Lafavore said. The plates are coated in silver, which is then exposed to gases that render it light-sensitive.
When the plate is exposed - or, in other words, when a picture is taken - the image is permanently fixed by chemically stabilizing the silver. Lafavore said the image must be protected in a case, usually made of leather or wood, with one side composed of glass so the photograph may be viewed.
In the early 1990s, Lafavore focused his collecting efforts on the daguerreotype but never abandoned his interests in other forms of early photography. His collection is an eclectic mix of daguerreotypes, albumen prints, ambrotypes, tintypes and silver and platinum prints, some of which are displayed in the HMA exhibition.
There are stories behind most of the images in Lafavore's collection. As they look at the images in the Shuford Gallery, Museum visitors may read those stones in a special "Collector's Comments" handout available in the exhibition. "I often remember who I bought the image from, where it was obtained, how rare it is," he said. "In some cases I have done research about the photographer or the subjects in the photo. Each image is unique; there are no negatives to make copies from."
The sights and sounds
of the coast come to life in the exhibition, Claude Howell:
Coastal Scenes from St. Johns Museum of Art, a collection
of oil paintings and serigraphs. The exhibit is on loan from the
St. Johns Museum of Art in Wilmington, NC, where Howell (1915
- 1997) was born and where he later founded the art department
at UNC-Wilmington.
Howell often conveyed the atmosphere and beauty he found in the coastal scenery of Georgia and the Carolinas, according to HMA Curator Mary Agnes Beach. "Bright colors set in vivid juxtaposition create an excitement in Howell's work and characterize the style for which he is known," Beach said. "Many of the scenes in this exhibition illustrate boats and the activities of the men and women who make their livelihood in and around them. Nets, and the mending of nets, is a frequent subject, as is the trimming and hoisting of sails."
Other works in the exhibition, Beach said, turn attention away from the sand and surf and highlight a street or building in a coastal town, offering viewers a sense of the light, terrain and architecture in which Howell found pleasure.
The exhibit includes special text panels to help younger audiences understand and enjoy the works.
For additional information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings or call the Museum at 828/327-8576 or log on
to (http://www.hickorymuseumofart.org).
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