March 2014

Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC, Offers Works by Harry Taylor and Bruce Barclay Cameron, Jr.

The Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC, is presenting several new exhibits including: Requiem in Glass: Brady’s Greenhouse, featuring an installation by Harry Taylor, on view through June 1, 2014, and Bruce Barclay Cameron Duck Decoy Collection, on view through June 1, 2014.

Mathew Brady (American, c. 1822-1896) is considered to be the father of photojournalism and was responsible for most of the photographic documentation of the American Civil War. When the war was over, Brady was forced to sell most of his glass plate negatives to settle his debts. These glass negatives then were recycled to build greenhouses, but as the years went by, the sun’s rays burned the imagery from the glass and the images were lost.

In this installation Wilmington photographer Harry Taylor re-imagines these fabled greenhouses, inspired by how these structures may have appeared during Reconstruction. The greenhouse features 300 of Taylor’s glass plate images which invoke Brady’s Civil War photography and the history of the Cape Fear region.

Taylor is a fine art photographer based in Wilmington. He mainly works in the Wet Plate Collodion process which involves large format cameras, up to 16x20 and on-site procession in a portable darkroom. His work explores the American South and the Civil War. Taylor’s work has been featured in Garden and Gun, Our State, Coastal Living and most recently in an intimate portrayal of the novelist Allan Gurganus in Oxford American.

Avid huntsman, sportsman, and philanthropist, Bruce Barclay Cameron, Jr. collected duck decoys throughout his lifetime. This exhibition highlights a selection of Cameron’s most noted decoys. Artisans included are A. Elmer Crowell from Cape Cod, MA; Joseph Lincoln from Accord, MA; Hucks Caines from Georgetown, SC; the Ward Brothers, Lemuel and Stephen from Crisfield, MD; Mitchell Fulcher of Stacy, NC; and Ned Burgess of Duck, NC.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 910/395-5999 or visit (www.cameronartmuseum.org).

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