| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
September Issue 2005
A Brief History of the Carolina Art Association and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC
by Sara Arnold, Gibbes Archivist
In 1857, a group of Charleston citizens, consisting of prominent
businessmen and political leaders organized the Carolina Art Association.
The primary purpose of the Association was to promote fine arts
in South Carolina. The Association was awarded its official state
charter on Dec. 21, 1858, and its founding members included John
Ashe Alston, James H. Taylor, James Rose, Governor R.F.W. Allston
(President), A. Sachtleban, and Timothy P. Dodge. Though not the
first organization established in Charleston to support the arts,
the CAA is the most successful and enduring. In existence before
the organizations that established the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Carolina Art
Association survived the Civil War and such natural disasters
as a fire, an earthquake, and a hurricane.
The Association presented its first exhibition in Apr. 1858, displaying
176 works borrowed from private collections around the city. Held
in the hall of the Apprentices Library Society on Horlbecks Alley,
the event launched the Association's commitment to collecting
and exhibiting works of art in Charleston. Membership grew steadily
in its initial years. In addition to the $10 annual membership
dues as a means to raise money, the Association also held a fair
in May 1859 that raised $6,000. The funding allowed the Association
to invest in a permanent collection and commission its first piece,
Sergeant Jasper Raising the Flag at Fort Moultrie by Emmanuel
Leutze, a German-born American painter (1816-1868), who was likely
selected based on a recommendation by Charleston artist John Irving
Jr.
During its first three years, the CAA presented an annual exhibition and sustained a promising start. However, disaster struck in 1861 when a fire swept through Charleston and destroyed the Apprentices Library Hall and other structures in downtown Charleston. All but one of the Association's paintings was destroyed. The combination of the fire, the onset of the Civil War, and the following period of reconstruction disrupted operations of the CAA for the ensuing twenty years.
In 1878, several of the original founders initiated the reorganization of the CAA as funds invested by the Association prior to the war had miraculously survived. In 1880, the Association hosted its first exhibition since 1861. Presented in Market Hall, the exhibition organizers noted a low attendance level among the city's youth. Such minimal interest prompted the Association's president, Gabriel Manigault, to initiate the formation of an art school to foster an appreciation for the arts in the city's younger generations. Such an opportunity had been stifled during the years of war and reconstruction.
The building known as the "Depository" on Chalmers Street was purchased to house the school and a gallery. An instructor from New York was hired to teach classes. For a monthly fee of $1.00, students were assured that they would be "directed to fit themselves for profitable employment in one or the other of the constantly multiplying departments of Art Work." In its first year of operation, five hundred students enrolled in the school. In order to supplement the school's revenue, the CAA developed an agreement with Charleston County to provide art instruction to boys and girls in the public school system. In return, the CAA received an annual appropriation of $500 from the County. The Association, however, struggled financially. In 1892, school operations were turned over to an independent teacher who leased the space and equipment from the CAA. Over the next decade, the CAA ceased presenting exhibitions and membership dwindled. In contrast, the permanent collection continued to grow and soon the Association would have a new home.
At the end of the nineteenth century, a local
patron of the arts, James Shoolbred Gibbes, Sr., left $100,000
in trust for the "erection or purchase of a suitable building
to be used as a Hall or Halls for the exhibition of paintings
and for necessary rooms for students in the fine arts." Gibbes
named four trustees in his will: the office of the Mayor of Charleston,
Gabriel Manigault, Charles Simonton, and F.W. Dawson. Although
the trust monies were due to the Trustees in 1899, upon the death
of Gibbes' immediate descendents, the bequest was contested in
court and the funds were not released until 1903.
Charles Simonton and Mayor Adger Smythe, the only surviving trustees
to the legacy, immediately purchased a lot at 135 Meeting Street
and hired renowned South Carolina architect Frank P. Milburn to
design a gallery. Milburn chose the Beaux Arts style, popular
for museums at the turn of the century and featuring classical
forms and highly decorative details, Milburn's design included
an imposing Tiffany-style dome, and implemented such classical
elements as an arcade, Doric columns, pilasters, and pediment
capped windows and doorways.
As the building neared completion the new Mayor of Charleston,
R.G. Rhett petitioned the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
to name formally a co-trustee to the Gibbes bequest. On Dec. 22,
1904, Master of Court of Common Pleas recommended that "the
Carolina Art Association, and its successors, be appointed a co-trustee
with the Mayor of Charleston, and his successors, to hold and
administer the legacy left by James S. Gibbes for an Art building,
and the building in which it has been invested, under the terms
of the Will of the testator, the appointment to take effect upon
the completion and acceptance of the said building."
Main Gallery, Gibbes Museum
of Art, ca. 1905 1930
The James S. Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery (now the Gibbes Museum of Art) opened to the public on Apr. 11, 1905. The first annual Exhibition of Paintings was comprised of works on loan from New York as well as works from the Association's permanent collection. Reviews of the grand event were favorable. The Charleston Evening Post asserted, "visitors were admitted to the feast of pictures and works of art and exclamations of delight were heard on every side as the beauty of the exhibition was grasped." This was the first in a series of annual exhibitions, many of which circulated from New York and featured such well-known artists as Robert Henri, Childe Hassam and William Merrit Chase.
Once the Gibbes opened, the all-male Carolina
Art Association revised its constitution to allow for female membership.
In the new 1905 constitution, "Female members shall not have
the right to vote at meetings of the Association, but may hold
any office to which they may be elected, except that at no time
shall there be more than four female members of the executive
board. They shall pay one dollar in place of five dollars paid
by male members." The reformed constitution allowed for the
recently formed Ladies Art Club to merge with the Carolina Art
Association and women assumed many of the daily responsibilities
of operating the Gallery and organizing the annual exhibitions.
In 1907, the CAA renewed its mission to provide creative art education
and sponsored studio art classes at the Gibbes. In order to generate
income, local artists rented studio space in the building. Over
the next few decades, Charleston became a popular destination
for American artists based in the Northeast, drawing William Merritt
Chase and Edward Hopper among others. It also attracted art collectors
like Solomon Guggenheim and Samuel Kress. This influx of artists
greatly influenced the burgeoning group of Charleston Renaissance
artists including Alice R.H Smith, Leila Waring, and Elizabeth
O'Neill Verner.
Charleston Sketch Club,
1933
The Gibbes became the center for artist gatherings. In 1921, the CAA hired New York artist, Alfred Heber Hutty, to teach printmaking classes at the Gibbes. Around this same time, such organizations as the Southern States Art League, the Charleston Sketch Club, and the Charleston Etchers Club formed and utilized the Gibbes as an outlet for their activities.
Between 1910 and 1932, the Carolina Art Association's
collection grew steadily. The numerous works donated and purchased
during this period include Alice R.H. Smith's Dwelling Houses
of Charleston series in 1918, works by Alfred Hutty in 1920,
and various works in miniature. Such precedent established the
collection trends of the institution. American art with a Southern
perspective became the Gibbes' primary focus predating other major
Southern collections at public institutions like the Greenville
County Museum of Art (1983) and the Roger Ogden Museum of Southern
Art (2002).
In 1932, the Carolina Art Association hired its first professional
director, Robert Whitelaw. Under Whitelaw's leadership, the Gibbes
began a period of substantial growth and national exposure. Whitelaw
cleared the rented rooms of tenants and transformed the Gallery
spaces. He developed a collections policy focusing on art with
local associations and organized traveling exhibitions including
a series of shows focusing on Charleston's rich tradition of miniature
painters.
Whitelaw secured the first grants awarded to the Museum, which
provided funding for capital improvements, acquisitions, special
exhibitions and an art library. The improvements made way for
such special exhibitions as Samuel Kress's collection of Italian
Renaissance art in 1935, and the first public showing of Solomon
Guggenheim's collection of non-objective art in 1936. The exhibitions
resulted in record attendance and membership levels. In 1938,
Charleston County provided its first support to the Gibbes in
the form of an annual appropriation of $50,000.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s the Association
expanded its scope of interest. At the request of the Mayor of
Charleston, the Association assumed custody of the Dock Street
Theater in 1938. Reconstructed through the Works Progress Administration
in the mid-1930s, the theatre presented such quality productions
as to build a national reputation. In addition to its acquisition
of the Dock Street Theater, the Carolina Art Association established
a Civic Services Committee, which became largely involved in Charleston's
city planning and preservation movement. The Committee secured
substantial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to conduct
a survey of the city's historic structures. The results were published
in the volume This is Charleston and greatly influenced
the establishment of the National Register of Historic Places.
Concurrently, the Association continued to expand its collection.
In 1938, renowned local artist Alice Ravenel Huger Smith donated
the collection of watercolors featured in the book, A Carolina
Rice Plantation of the Fifties. In addition to these works,
Mary Alston Read Smith donated the Motte Alston Read collection
of 400 Japanese wood block prints from the Ukiyo-e period in 1947.
The Read collection illustrates the development of Japanese printmaking
and largely influenced local artists of the Charleston Renaissance
including Alice Ravenel Huger Smith.
Following World War II, the Gibbes faced financial difficulties that required the Association relinquish some of its new endeavors including the Dock Street Theater. In 1953, the Association also temporarily discontinued its art school. The Gibbes Art Gallery Auxiliary (today's Women's Council) formed in 1950 to boost support for the Gibbes through fundraising. In 1954, it opened the Junior Gallery at the Gibbes and offered art education. Though experiencing various challenges throughout the 1950s, the Gibbes continued to present compelling, progressive exhibitions. They included a 1955 exhibition of Georgia O'Keefe's work, and a 1956 exhibition featuring Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt. By the mid-1960s, the Gibbes once again entered a period of growth.
During the last quarter of the twentieth century,
the Gibbes experienced an unprecedented period of expansion. Plans
to enlarge the Gibbes' physical plant began as early as 1960.
In 1965, the house at 76 Queen Street was purchased with funds
donated by Josephine Pinckney. Efforts led by Drayton Hastie,
who spearheaded the fundraising campaign to renovate the building,
allowed the Gibbes to revive its art school. The Hastie School
of Art opened at 76 Queen Street in 1969.
In 1970, in celebration of South Carolina's tri-centennial, the
Gibbes organized a major exhibition, Art in South Carolina
1670-1970, which was first exhibited at the Gibbes and then
traveled to Columbia and Greenville. This exhibition and accompanying
publication helped to solidify the Association's position as a
leading repository of art in the Southeast. In 1972, the Gibbes
was among the first museums in the Southeast to receive accreditation
from the American Association of Museums. In 1974, Charleston
author Robert W. Marks gave the Gibbes a significant collection
of photographs he collected during the years he lived and worked
in New York City, including 150 black and white prints taken by
such renowned photographers as Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott,
and Margaret Bourke-White.
This series of events led the Gibbes into its first major building campaign. Charleston city and county governments as well as private donors provided the necessary funding. The $1,200,000 renovation, involving restoration of the 1905 building and the addition of a new wing, which increased gallery space, storage, and work areas, was complete in 1978. The addition had been designed to accommodate contemporary works of art, thus facilitating a new era of exhibitions.
In 1977, the Gibbes became the principal venue
for the presentation of visual arts for Spoleto Festival, USA.
During the 1980s, in conjunction with Spoleto, the Gibbes presented
exhibitions featuring such pivotal contemporary American artists
as Louise Nevelson, Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein. In 1983,
the Gibbes hosted its first exhibition of work by local artist,
Edwin A. Harleston, and later formed associations with the City's
MOJA Arts Festival, which celebrates Charleston's African American
heritage.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several intimate permanent
galleries were installed on the first floor to display, separately,
miniature portraits, Japanese prints, and the miniature room collection.
In 1990, with the renovation of the first floor promenade complete,
the Charleston Renaissance Gallery was opened, with the support
of the Women's Council and a private donor, to showcase Charleston
artists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. In 1996, the Women's Council
also provided funds to revamp the third floor of the building
in order to create office and storage space for the collections
department and the institution's archives. In 1995, the Gibbes
grounds were redesigned, and in 2003 the permanent exhibition
Art in the South: A Charleston Perspective opened on the
first floor, wrapping up several decades of building and gallery
enhancements.
The Gibbes closed the twentieth century with
a tribute to Charleston's past, and opened the new century with
an international flair. The 1999 exhibition, In Pursuit of
Refinement Charlestonians Abroad 1740-1860, featured works
of fine and decorative art objects associated with genteel life
in Charleston during the eighteenth century and throughout the
antebellum period. The first exhibition of the new century, Picasso
Ceramics, featured 50 pieces of sculpture by Pablo Picasso.
This exhibition was followed by Communion of the Spirits: The
Stories of African American Quilters, Preservers, and their Stories,
which complemented Charleston's MOJA Arts Festival.
Fall 2003 marked both an interest in Pop Art and building, once
again, connections between local artists and those from elsewhere.
The Human Comedy: Portraits by Red Grooms and Face Lift: Fresh
Encounters with Portraiture at the Gibbes presented
a contemporary, provocative exploration of portraits, a genre
well represented in the permanent collection.
Now in its 100th year, the Gibbes Museum of
Art will seek its third reaccreditation from the American Association
of Museums in 2005. The recent acquisition of a collection of
James McNeil Whistler's etchings donated by Dr. and Mrs. Anton
Vreede exemplifies the museum's status as the preeminent institution
for the visual arts in the Southeast. Through the Gibbes Museum
and School of Art, the Carolina Art Association continues its
mission to advance fine arts in South Carolina by collecting,
exhibiting, and interpreting art of the region, and exposing Charleston's
citizens to art from around the globe.
References for this article include:
Docher, Sallie Art Exhibitions in Nineteenth-Century Charleston,
Art in the Lives of South Carolinians, Carolina Art Association
1979
Mack, Angela, Art History Charleston Place, 1995
Manigault, G.E., History of the Carolina Art Association,
Charleston City Year Book, 1885
Mouzon, Harold, The Carolina Art Association, Its First Hundred
Years, South Carolina Historical Magazine, 1958
Severens, Martha, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Carolina Art
Association 1993
Severans, Martha The Charleston Renaissance, Saraland Press,
Spartanburg SC 1998
Additional sources utilized in Gibbes Art Archives: Minutes of
Carolina Art Association, Exhibition Files, Artist Files, and
Administrative Records
For additional information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Gibbes at 843/722-2706 or at (www.gibbesmuseum.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2005 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2005 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.