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June Issue 2005
SC State Museum in Columbia, SC, Acquires Important Photographic Collection
The South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, SC, has acquired approximately 4,300 negatives from what may be the most important and most comprehensive documentary collection of contemporary South Carolina artists.
Photographer Robert Smeltzer of Greenville, SC, worked with Greenville County Museum of Art director Jack Morris to provide the photographs for "Contemporary Artists of South Carolina," a book featuring 39 influential artists in the state. From 1968-1970, the two compiled artist profiles with more than 300 photographs of artists in their studios and their work. Forty artists are represented in the archive.
"Robert Smeltzer was a photographer and arts administrator at an important time in South Carolina's art history," says Chief Curator of Art Paul Matheny. "Contemporary southern artists were beginning to move beyond the romanticized work of live oaks, magnolias, plantation houses and traditional arts that had defined Southern art during and following Reconstruction. "By the mid 20th century, many artists in South Carolina were engaged in creating work influenced by what was happening in the art world beyond the borders of Southern states. Smeltzer's photographs document an extremely important part of South Carolina's art history and his gift to the State Museum will ensure that this important archive is preserved for many future generations."
As accomplished as he is, Smeltzer, 86, became a photographer "by accident." When he began working as a reporter for the afternoon paper The Greenville Piedmont in 1957, Smeltzer was unimpressed with the photographer's work and decided to pick up the camera himself. It was then he realized that he should have been a photographer.
Smeltzer not only photographed the arts and artists, but wrote about them as well.
"As a reporter, I wasn't interested in covering murders or burning houses," he says. "I don't know why, but in those days the arts was a woman's beat. I knew the artists personally. I just like these kinds of people."
(William
Halsey & Corrie McCallum)
Included in Smeltzer's recently acquired collection are black and white negatives of artists William Halsey and Corrie McCallum, whose art is currently on display in the museum's Lipscomb Gallery and can be seen until July.
"I am a great admirer of William Halsey and I like Corrie," he says. "I'm just crazy about Halsey's work."
Though not as active as he once was, Smeltzer still photographs the cats around his house. He does it, much to his chagrin, by taking the film to the local drugstore for developing.
"I have a saying, photography begins in the darkroom," he says. "I am interested in photography from a personal standpoint as the way it used to be. I'm a dinosaur. I like the old way."
For further information call the Museum
at 803/898-4921 or at (www.museum.state.sc.us).
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