SAVANNAH, Ga. –The Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies and the SCAD Museum of Art and will host an exhibition as part of the Savannah Black Heritage Festival. The exhibition, titled “Poetic Visions: Focus on Black Women Artists,†will be on display Feb.1-14, 2008, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. A reception will be held Feb. 5, 5-6 p.m. Both the exhibition and the reception will take place at the SCAD Museum of Art’s temporary gallery on the third floor of Jen Library, 201 E. Broughton St., and are free and open to the public.
A selection of approximately 15 pieces from the Walter O. Evans Collection and the SCAD Museum of Art will feature the work of sculptors Mary Edmonia Lewis and Elizabeth Catlett, folk artist Clementine Hunter, and painters Alma Thomas, Lois Mailou Jones and Margaret Burroughs, as well as Faith Ringgold, who is well-known for her painted story quilts that combine the traditions of painting, quilting and storytelling.
Highlights include Edmonia Lewis’s marble sculpture illustrating Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.â€Â Also on display will be Elizabeth Catlett’s powerful large-scale mahogany sculpture titled “Homage to Black Women Poets†and her illustrations for the poem “For My People†by Margaret Walker. Preliminary drawings and a plaster study for the sculpture will also be on view.
Many of these artists were the first African-American women to graduate with Bachelor of Fine Arts or Masters of Fine Arts degrees, and all have had an outstanding impact on the world of African-American art, as well as on the realm of female artists.
To read our previous post about Savannah Black Heritage Festival, click here.