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September Issue 2002
Carolina Galleries in Charleston, SC, Presents Rare Exhibition of Works by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith
Carolina Galleries in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibition, The Sound of the Wind in the Pines: The Poetic Paintings of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, from Sept. 27 through Oct. 27, 2002.
Art has always been described as a window into the artist's soul. Gazing into the watercolors of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, the moon rising over the sea, a flock of Ibises on the wing, a setting sun over a marsh, is to see her essence. In 1926, a writer for the American Magazine of Art described her work as "...fixed upon the paper with magical speed and lightness, as if the essence of it had merely paused. The marvel of such painting is its ethereal radiance".
Born in Charleston, SC, to very prominent families on both her father and mother's sides, Smith became one of the leading figures in the Charleston Renaissance. Primarily self taught, she began her formal art training at the Carolina Art Association. She soon became friends with Lovell Birge Harrison, a Woodstock painter who was vacationing in Charleston. Harrison was a major influence in Smith's career but she was also impressed by Japanese woodblock prints. The aqueous nature of the watercolors which she would soon master was perfectly suited for tendency to absorb nature and paint from memory. The herons, egrets, moss laden trees, abandoned rice fields, and moonlit marshes of the Carolina Lowcountry became her muse. Smith, much like Alexander Drysdale in Louisiana and Will Henry Stevens and Elliot Dangerfield in North Carolina, chose to paint the South in an idealized, romanticized, and positive way.
Twelve of her watercolors will be on display at Carolina Galleries, coming from two different estates of people very close to the artist. It is rare for such a large group of her watercolors to be available.
For more info check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/723-2266, or at (www.carolinagalleries.com).
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: info@carolinaarts.com
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Carolina Arts
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