June 2011

USC Sumter, in Sumter, SC, Features Works by Laura Spong

USC Sumter, in Sumter, SC, is presenting the exhibit, Laura Spong: From The Catalogue, on view in the University Gallery, located in Anderson Library, on view through June 28, 2011.

Spong is an 85 years young artist who has been painting since the 1950s when she took art classes at the Richland School of Art in Columbia, SC. Throughout the years Spong raised 6 children and worked in a number of different professions – all with art at the core of the job.

In 1991, Spong took a studio at Vista Studios in Columbia, SC. Since then, she has been painting consistently and shown her work at many venues. Spong had an 80th birthday exhibition that was a catalyst to a demand of her artistry and a surge in her passion to continue her legacy. Spong has stated: “First of all… I like to paint; it is my passion…”.

Spong is among South Carolina’s best non-objective painters. Except for a few urban landscape scenes, still lifes and figurative paintings, mostly done as art-class assignments in the 1950s, Spong has always produced non-representational, Abstract Expressionist paintings.

In the last few years, Spong has dramatically increased her reputation in her state and beyond with a series of solo exhibitions and several group shows, including a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. Her 80th-birthday exhibition in 2006, organized by if ART Gallery in Columbia, SC, came with a 32-page catalogue, Laura Spong at 80: Warming the Chill Wind with Celebration. In 2007, a dozen of Spong’s paintings were in a group exhibition at the Greenville County Museum of Art, which bought one of her works. That same year, the South Carolina State Museum purchases two of Spong paintings, one recent and one from the 1950s. In 2006, the South Carolina State Art Collection had also purchased two of her paintings, including one from the 1950s.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listing, contact Cara-lin Getty, Director, at 803/938-3727 or e-mail at (cgetty@uscsumter.edu) or Laurel Jordan, Gallery Assistant, at 803/938-3801 or e-mail at (jordalau@uscsumter.edu).

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