Sep 10, 2007 - Mar 8, 2008

People Reading: Selections from the Collection
of Donald and Patricia Oresman

CATALOGS AVAILABLE
to order click here

the exhibit online

The Artist with the Book
by Marc Chagall

Sixy pieces of work selected from a collection numbering over twenty-three hundred works that has been featured in portfolios in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. The Oresman's collection may be the largest and most distinguished collection in America assembled around the particular theme of persons reading.

Among the artists whose works will be seen in the Spartanburg exhibit are: Pierre Bonnard, Elizabeth Catlett, Marc Chagall, Fritz Eichenberg, Jean Louis Forain, Edward Gorey, Kyokei Inukai, Clare Leighton, Leo Meissener, Diego Rivera, and Ben Shahn.

The exhibit will provide the basis for community programs focused upon the issue of literacy, the literary enterprise, and the pursuits of book and art art collecting.

This exhibit is conceived and curated
by Thomas L. Johnson, PhD.

Mar. 6, Thur. 7:30 p.m

"The Reader and the Artist, the Artist and the Reader", Nicholas A. Basbanes, book expert. Lecture in the Auditorium of the Main Library.

The Basbanes presentation is jointly sponsored by
The Spartanburg County Public Libraries &
the Spartanburg Art Museum.

 

 

 

Jan 22 - Mar 22

Margaret M. Law (1871-1956)

Selections from The Spartanburg Art Museum's
Palmetto Bank Endowed Permanent Collection of one of Spartanburg's best known artists.

Jan 22 - Mar 22

Leon Makielski (1885–1974):
American Impressionist

Makielski was a member of a number of art colonies, both in the United States and in Europe. He painted in Paris, Giverny and Venice. In 1909 he sailed for Paris, where he enrolled at the Academie Julian and the Grande Chaumiere. He exhibited his work at the Paris Salons of 1910 and 1911.

J.M. Studebaker, president of Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company, provided Makielski with his financial and moral support during his studies and travels in Europe. In one of his letters of support to the artist during this time, Studebaker inquired about two of his paintings which were shipped to the United States via the steamer, Titanic. As he suspected, the paintings went down with the ship while the artist cancelled his passage on the Titanic to stay on in Europe to paint for another month.

Makielski's move to Ann Arbor in 1915 launched his career as a portrait and landscape painter. During his teaching days in 1923 he painted a portrait of his friend, Robert Frost. This portrait of Frost now hangs in the Museum of Art at the University of Michigan.

Makielski was included in William Gerdts’ book, Monet’s Giverny: An Impressionist Colony (New York: Abbeville, 1993), p. 218, 260.

 

Mar 18 - May 3

Genesis to Revelation:
the work of William Thomas Thompson

William Thomas Thompson, who has created an expansive series of paintings on the theme of Biblical Revelation, has had his work exhibited in art museums in Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Seattle and St. Louis. Approximately half of his work deals with Biblical themes. Other topics critically address social problems and inequities which Thompson recognizes in Western society.

 

Mill House Twilight
by Mark Mulfinger

Apr 1 - May 3

A Common Thread:
A Celebration of South Carolina Talent

Selections from SAM's permanent collection by artists whose works are also appearing in The Palmetto Bank's Collection (see below).

Apr 8 - May 24

Selections from
the award winning
Palmetto Bank Corporate Collection

Water Lilies
by Phil Garrett

In 2007, The The Palmetto Bank was awarded the Elizabeth O'Neil Verner Governor's Award for the Arts for its continued efforts to support and nurture South Carolina's arts and artists. Begun over 30 years ago, The Bank's Corporate Collection represents some of the best art of contemporary South Carolina Artists.

May 13 - Jul 5

Mac Arthur Goodwin
A journey of imagery and
a tribute to the women of Gee’s Bend

Renowned as both artist and arts educator, Dr. Mac Arthur Goodwin has contributed significantly to the artistic and aesthetic definition of the arts at the state and national level. He received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and the Order of the Palmetto. Goodwin has been named both the National art educator and National art supervisor and administrator.

“I believe that an artist should demonstrate a command of skills and remain committed to a personal aesthetics that moves viewers to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the work of art.”

May 13 - Jul 5

Claire Miller Hopkins:
Something Old, Something New,
Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Reverie
by Claire Miller Hopkins

Claire Miller Hopkins work in oil, watercolor and pastel is widely known throughout the southeast and has won awards in national and regional exhibitions. Her many memberships include The Pastel Society of America in which she has been bestowed the designation of Master Pastelist.

A featured artist in The Artists' Magazine in Fall of 1994, Hopkins was a contributing artist in a number of books including Pastel Interpretations (Northlight 1993), The Best of Portrait Painting (Northlight 1998), and The Art of Pastel Portraiture (Watson-Guptil 1997).

Jun 3 - Aug 16

Penguins and the Art of Being Cool
photographs by J.J. L'Heureux

Atka Bay
Emperor Family Greeting
by J. J. L’Heureux

Beat the Heat of our Southern Summer by being surrounded by Adelies, Chinstraps, Emperors, Gentoos, and Kings! An Antarctic treat for young and old.

Added bonus for students: Write a poem, essay, or story about penguins and get free admittance to the Science Center. Draw or paint a picture of penguins and get free admittance to SAM.

The Penguins exhibit is a joint project of
The Spartanburg Science Center &
the Spartanburg Art Museum.

Jun 10 - Aug 5

Art & the Animal:
The 47th Annual Exhibition and National Tour of
The Society of Animal Artists

Follow the Leader
by Trey Finney

The Society of Animal Artists is an association of animal and wildlife painters and sculptors. Founded in 1960, the Society is devoted to promoting excellence in the portrayal of the creatures sharing our planet, and to the education of the public through its informative art seminars, lectures and teaching demonstrations. Some of the finest animal artists from the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Japan, and Australia are represented in the Society's membership.

Over the past 40 years the work created by these artists has established new standards of artistic excellence and respect, helping animal and wildlife art to achieve a place of honor in the field of fine art.

Jul 15 - Nov 29

Recent Acquisitions
of the Spartanburg Art Museum

Maternité
by François Jacquemin
(1923-1988)

This exhibit of work recently acquired by SAM features four works by François Jacquemin (1923-1988).

Born in Paris in 1923, Jacquemin participated in the French Resistance during the Second World War and returned to France in 1945 from his interment in concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He settled into “La Ruche” working and mingling with a number of well known painters including Paul Colomb, Roger-Durand, Fin, de Gallard, Mauhin, Mouly, and Rebeyrolles.

One of his canvases on the subject of "the Universe of the Concentration Camp," was noticed by Jean Cassou in 1950 and acquired by the Musée d’Art Moderne that year. A number of Jacquemin’s works are owned by museums in Paris, Vienna, Besançon, and Metz.

François Jacquemin spent six weeks in Spartanburg in 1977 with a one-man exhibit at The Gallery in the former Arts Center on Spring Street. The show later traveled to The Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences Museum of Art in Savannah, GA and the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC.

Demeter
by Teresa Prater

July 29 - Oct 18

The Artists' Guild of Spartanburg
35th Annual Juried Exhibition

Formed in October of 1957, the AGS is among the longest-lived visual arts organizations in South Carolina. This annual event is a benchmark of the guild’s success, always impressing outside judges with the amount of talent that resides in Spartanburg, Cherokee, Greenville, Laurens, Polk, Rutherford, and Union Counties.

Aug 19 - Oct 25

The Harold Krisel Print Collection

Harold Krisel (1920-1996) studied architecture at the Chicago Institute of Design’s New Bauhaus from 1946-1949. He became a member of American Abstract Artists in 1946, and retained this membership for the duration of his life. Krisel completed his graduate studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1952 He then worked as an architect at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill until 1966, when he joined the faculty of the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan where he taught architecture until his retirement in 1981.

Once retired, Krisel pursued his life long dream of dedicating himself full time to the fine arts, where he worked on commissioned sculpture, fountains, and graphics in his studio in Bridgehampton, Long Island.

His work is in the permanent collections of:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the British Museum (London), the Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris), the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Trinity College (Dublin), the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Princeton University Library.

His work may be seen on the walls at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, the sculpture on Butler Circle on the Wofford College Campus, and now through a generous donation of forty prints by his estate, the permanent collection of the Spartanburg Art Museum. 

In addition, an extensive collection of his designs adorn the walls of the Milliken & Company textile facilities in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Oct 28 - Jan 3

Stephen Chesley

Stephen Chesley is a modern tonalist painter yet credits diverse artists such as Inness, Hopper, Pollack, Rembrandt, & Seurat as influences in his work. His paintings often depict the fleeting light of dawn & dusk, combined with primordial elements such as water, wind, and fire.

Among South Carolina's best known living landscape painters, Chesley's work is in the collections of BellSouth, Carolina First Bank, Columbia Museum of Art, Erskine College, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, National Bank of South Carolina, Savannah College of Art & Design, and State of South Carolina Art Collection.

Nov 4 - Dec 27

Keith Spencer

Keith Spencer says, "What makes something unique has always interested me. I think at some level, I am trying to reveal that uniqueness to the viewer, whether it is a landscape, a figure, a still life or a feeling."

A former commercial artist whose clients included Reebok Int'l, Champion Apparel, Umbro USA, GT Bikes, and Harley-Davidson Keith Spencer is currently represented by galleries in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Washington.

Spencer's paintings are most often done in the alla prima tradition (one sitting) where he works quickly, but very focused, applying oils directly and intuitively. "If realism is about subject matter and abstracts are about paint Keith Spencer's work bridges the gap", says one gallery owner.

Nov 11 - Jan 4

David M. Benson
"Out of the Frying Pan & into the Fire"

Known in the Spartanburg area as an arts educator of exceptional ability, and throughout the South Carolina arts community as an artist whose often whimsical insights both delight and inspire, David Benson's impact as artist and art educator has been exceptional. This year marks the Dorman High School Art teacher's retirement from our public school system. A review of the past and a look into the future.