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February Issue 2006
Sumter Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, Offers Annual Oil Painters' Show and Works by Minnie DesChamps
Sumter Gallery of Art
in Sumter, SC, will present the exhibits, 2006 NBSC Oil Painters'
Open Invitational and The World of Minnie DesChamps,
from Feb. 9 through Mar. 26, 2006.
Prospectuses have been sent to over 165 oil painters from all
regions of the state. The distinguished juror for the 2006
NBSC Oil Painters Open Invitational is Tom Nakashima, a notable
artist in his own right, currently The William S. Morris Eminent
Scholar in Art at Augusta State University in Augusta, GA, and
Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University in Washington, DC.
The rigorous juried process promises a strong show.
The Oil Painters Open Invitational emanates from the Sumter
Gallery of Art, and then after March, travels for a year under
the auspices of The State Museum in Columbia, SC. NBSC of Sumter,
and the City Executive, Bobby Boykin, have been good stewards
of this exhibition for twenty four years. It was an especially
wonderful gesture for NBSC to increase the prize money awarded
this year by $100 for each winner/honorable mention. The show
is unique in that it showcases work from artists all over the
state, rendered strictly in oil. The Sumter Gallery of Art is
excited about this show, and we encourage all to come and experience
the 2006 NBSC Oil Painters Open Invitational.
The other solo exhibition, The World of Minnie DesChamps,
is a rare chance to experience the art of native Sumterite Minnie
DesChamps; fisherman, hunter, farmer, and artist. DesChamps, who
died nearly twenty years ago, was a folk artist firmly in the
tradition of Clementine Hunter, another folk artist who documented
by "marking" her observations on the hard life of farm
labor, and the brief respites, dances, fishing, from that hard
life.
According to Doris Leeper writing in the 1969 issue of the Sandlapper
magazine, DesChamps "painted the African-American farm
laborers of Shiloh and Mayesville, chopping cotton, planting seedlings
or just resting in the sun. She knew these rural communities intimately
and her great devotion to them pervades her work".
DesChamps' also traveled to Florida, and coastal South Carolina,
and painted some wonderful "circus" pictures from the
Ringling Brothers summer compound and some ocean scenes from Garden
City. Leeper wrote "Her work really is much as she is-direct
and unaffected. The simple, untrained style seems eminently suited
to her subject matter".
Many folk art aficionados
in the state are acquainted with Minnie's art, but most South
Carolinians outside of Sumter are unfamiliar with her. DesChamps
work has lain in storage for many years, even surviving Hurricane
Hugo. Through the diligent efforts of her nephew, who felt a strong
commitment to show her work to the audience it so richly deserves,
this show became a reality. The Sumter Gallery of Art is honored
to exhibit approximately 35 pieces of this vibrant body of work,
rarely seen, but soon to be more appreciated.
Join us on Mar. 1, 2006, at 6pm, for a double-billed gallery talk
on Minnie DesChamps by Paul Methany, Chief Curator of Art at the
State Museum, and some of Minnie's friends and relations who will
have everyone chuckling with personal vignettes of Minnie Deschamps
and her great dane Precious!
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery
at 803//775-0543 or e-mail at (info@sumtergallery.com).
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