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September Issue 2005
Spartanburg County Museum of Art in Spartanburg, SC, Offers Several New Exhibitions
The Spartanburg County Museum of Art in Spartanburg, SC, is pleased to present a suite of printmaking exhibits. The exhibit, Southern Masters of Printmaking (Sept. 6 - Oct. 30, 2005), is drawn from a private collection in Spartanburg and is complemented by the educational exhibit, Exploring the World of Printmaking through our Contemporary Area Printmakers (through Oct. 23, 2005). A third exhibit, Paintings and Prints by Doug Whittle of Madison, Wisconsin, will juxtapose the small intimate prints of Doug Whittle with his larger landscape paintings (Sept. 12 - Oct. 23, 2005).
In Southern Masters, approximately 90 works produced from the 1890s through the 1960s depict life in the south, and illustrate the range and versatility of relief, intaglio, and lithographic printing processes. Among the artists represented in the show are Sigmund Abeles, George Aid, Thomas Hart Benton, August Cook, James Fowler Cooper, William Halsey, Alfred Hutty, Margaret Law, Corrie McCallum, Antoinette Rhett, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Anna Heyward Taylor, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, and Stephen Young.
The exhibition, Exploring the World of Printmaking, uses works by a few of our area's fine printmakers to illustrate informational panels about the Four Great Divisions of Printmaking. Ann Dergara of Brevard, NC, Boyd Saunders of Chapin, SC, Steven Chapp of Easley, SC, Carl Blair, Phil Garret, Mark Mulfinger, and Harrell Whittington, all of Greenville, SC; and Jim Creal, Pat Kabore, and Andrew Blanchard of Spartanburg, are represented in the show.
Grouped by division, each section of works has at least one print next to the plate from which it was pulled. A DerGara monotype plate, a Mulfinger linoleum relief plate, and a Saunders lithographic plate as well as etching plates from Creal and Whittington add to the educational component of the displays by creating mirror images of the works that hint at the magic moment when the printmaker lifts the paper from the plate and sees the resulting impression.
Progressive proofs from Saunders' illustrated book of William Faulkner's short story Spotted Horses and color separations from Mulfinger's print Mill House Twilight underscore the exacting and often tedious nature of designing and producing a successful print.
In size, scale, subject matter, and medium, the third exhibit, Paintings and Prints by Doug Whittle of Madison, Wisconsin, presents two very different sides of the same artist.
According to Whittle, formerly of Spartanburg, "In the Reformation Series (of etchings) I wanted to depict characters out of the catholic reformation as contemporary cultural icons in order to draw comparisons between the late 19th and mid-16th centuries. I hoped that taking a tongue-in-cheek look at those individuals, and their earnestness, may shed some humility on our 'edge-of-the-millennium-now-we-know-everything' attitude."
"Likewise, Nasty Habits, Adam and Eve and Samson and Delilah are a more introspective look at relationships. The symbolism and metaphors are not particularly elegant, perhaps, but they work for me."
In contrast to these smaller, thought provoking works are Whittle's large panoramic landscapes of the marshes and waterways of our southern coastal area.
The Annual COLORS Student Exhibition will be displayed in the Museum hallway during September and October, and will be dedicated to the memory of its former Director, Thomas Parham (1949-2005). COLORS is a free after-school art studio for at-risk youth, and has been recognized in Time Magazine and featured on the national morning program FOX After Breakfast.
For additional information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 864/582-7616 or at (www.spartanburgartmuseum.org).
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