Kentucky Art History

Kentucky Art History

with an emphasis on representational art

Introduction

This section of the Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) catalogue Topics in American Art is devoted to the topic "Kentucky Art History." Articles and essays specific to this topic published in TFAO's Resource Library are listed at the beginning of the section. Clicking on titles takes readers directly to the articles and essays.

Following the links to Resource Library articles and essays are a listing of museums in the state which have provided materials to Resource Library for this or any other topic.

Listed after museums are links to online resources outside the TFAO website. Following these resources is information about offline resources including DVDs, paper-printed books, journals and articles. Our goal is to present complete knowledge relating to this section of Topics in American Art.

TFAO welcomes volunteers to further the broadening of knowledge related to this topic. To learn more about TFAO's many volunteer opportunities please click here. Volunteers are welcome to contribute suggestions for additional content in this catalogue. Please see Catalogue and database management for details.

Resource Library essays listed by author name in alphabetical order, followed by articles:

New Deal Murals in Kentucky Post Offices

(above: Samuel Woodson Price 1828-1918), William Starke Rosecrans, 1868, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 25 1/4 in. National Portrait Gallery. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Museums and other non-profit sources of Resource Library articles and essays:

Belknap and Covi Galleries, Allen R. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville

International Museum of the Horse

Kentucky Historical Society

Lexington Art League

Speed Art Museum

University Art Museum, University of Kentucky

Yeiser Art Center

(above: Thomas Cole, Daniel Boone Sitting At the Door of His Cabin on the Great Osage Lake Kentucky, 1826. Source: Wikimedia Commons - public domain)

Other online information:

Artists from Kentucky in Wikipedia. Accessed August, 2015.

Cosmic Nature: Paintings by C.C. Coyle is a 2013 exhibit at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft which says: "C.C. Coyle's paintings are a collection representing Kentucky and West Coast landscape memories ranging in themes of nature, motherhood, astronomy, industrial progress, the passage of time and spirituality." Accessed 2/19

Even Coverlets Get the Blues is a 2019 exhibit at the Kentucky Museum which says: "Techniques represented in this exhibit range from overshot, double weave, and tied-beiderwand to latch hook rug making and weaving on a hand loom... Although the textiles in Even Coverlets Get the Blues are primarily functional in nature, they illustrate aesthetic decisions regarding design and color choices that historically were and are part of the weaving process." Accessed 2/20

Facing the Past was an "exhibition of historic Kentucky portraiture with an emphasis on the lives of portrait artists of Kentucky, their work and how society, war, wealth, time and style influenced their art" held December 5th to April 5th, 2011 at the Kentucky's Governor's Mansion.

(above: John Hazeltine, Hopewell Museum, 2023, photograph)

The Hopewell Museum is an art and historical museum located in Paris, KY that exhibits regional art. Accessed 4/23

James R. Hopkins: Faces of the Heartland is a 2017 exhibit at the Huntington Museum of Art which says: "For the first time in 40 years, a major exhibition will focus upon Hopkins and his rural Appalachian subjects. Organized by the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, and Keny Galleries, the exhibition will feature dozens of paintings, including a survey of his figural work and portraits, with a concentration upon the works he did in the Cumberland Falls area of Kentucky a century ago." Accessed 4/17

Kentuckiana Sublime: Harlan Hubbard and New Perspectives on Nature is a 2013 exhibit at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft https://www.kmacmuseum.org which says: "Out of his world, filled with makeshift boats, homegrown vegetables and handmade comforts, Harlan Hubbard rose as one of Kentuckiana's premiere artists, writers and naturalists. A steward, but never a servant, Harlan lived like the river itself: always changing and evolving, slowly and respectfully carving its impression through the Kentucky hills." Accessed 2/19

Kentucky (sampling of artists and works connected to state) from askArt. Accessed August, 2015.

Kentucky Folk Art Center, Morehead State University, as of 2015 offers several online exhibit catalogues featuring Kentucky art. Accessed May, 2015.

Kentucky Online Arts Resource, a project of The Speed Art Museum. Accessed August, 2015.

Kentucky Women: Helen LaFrance is an exhibition hosted by the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky from August 26, 2022 through April 30, 2023. The museum describes the exhibition as follows: "Gathering together works drawn from the Speed's collection and private loans, Kentucky Women: Helen LaFrance explores the art and life of this remarkable artist. LaFrance documented her western Kentucky rural and small-town experiences, rooted in Mayfield and around Graves County. Her sense-memory paintings feature moments recalled from everyday life: church picnics, shared meals, parades, and quilting bees. Working across a variety of mediums, including collage, sculpture, painting, and dollmaking, LaFrance's vibrant and life-affirming artwork documents a century's worth of Kentucky living. The Kentucky Women exhibition series offers a closer look at the work of important Kentucky women artists". Accessed 9/23

Kentucky Women Artists by Betty Lyn Parker and Susan Knoer. Accessed August, 2015.

Kentucky State Capitol public art - from Frankfort Public Art. Accessed August, 2015.

"Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, 1802-1920 by Estill Curtis Pennington" book review by William H. Truettner, from Indiana Magazine of History, Indiana University Department of History, September, 2011. Accessed August, 2015.

Master Works by Kentucky Painters: 1819-1935, September 14 - November 30, 2008. University of Kentucky Art Museum. The exhibition was guest curated by art historian and scholar Estill Curtis Pennington. From The Lane Report, September 1, 2008. Accessed August, 2015.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being is a 2019 exhibit at the Bates College Museum of Art which says: "Meatyard's voracious reading sparked endless ideas for his work and he embedded himself in Kentucky's cultural community through a circle of close friends that included writer, environmental activist, and farmer Wendell Berry; photographers Van Deren Coke and Robert C. May; the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who shared his interest in Zen; the painter Frederic Thursz; and the writer/poet/philosopher Guy Davenport." Accessed 6/20

Standing the Test of Time: Kentucky's White Oak Basket Tradition is a 2016 exhibit at the Kentucky Museum which says: "Baskets are made all over the world, reflecting the folk communities and environments from which they emerge. For generations of community members in and around Kentucky's Mammoth Cave region, basketmaking, particularly basketmaking using the thin, hand-rived splits of the white oak tree, has been a way of life." Accessed 2/19

Kentucky Educational Television offers a series of 1/2 hour videos from Mixed, a weekly arts series starting in 2003.

Program 611: Fiber artist and photographer Dobree Adams, performers from the Kentucky Opera's Young Artists' Program, and blacksmith and sculptor Erika Strecker.

Program 614: Sculptor Zoé Strecker, Lexington wood sculptor Philip Hultgren, and the music of Louisville's Ochion Jewell Quartet

Program 615: Harrodsburg potter Mike Frasca, another member of the Strecker family of artists; long-time Courier-Journal photographer Bill Luster in his hometown of Glasgow; and the eclectic sounds of Louisville's A.M. Sunday

Program 616: Lexington visual artist Jill Plaisted, a Transylvania University exhibit in honor of late art professor Louise Calvin, and music from the Betweeners.

Program 622: A salute to the 2004 Kentucky Music Hall of Fame inductees; Simpsonville photographer Bruce McElya, who has made seven solo raft trips to document the Grand Canyon from Colorado River level; and Louisville's Heidi Howe, who uses her music to support environmental and other cause

Program 624: Brown-Forman's corporate art collection, Frankfort woodcarver and printmaker Stephanie Potter, and a musical performance by the West Louisville Boys Choir

Program 702: Louisville painter Brenda Wirth, the Speed Art Museum's exhibition of Uwe Ommer's photographs, and music by Hussam Al-Aydi and Baladna.

Program 711: Dolls by artist/sculptor Becky Collings, holiday creations by Louisville-area designers, and vocal ensemble Coterie.

Program 712: Sculptor Tim Lewis, Bybee Pottery, and Louisville-based post-folk band Valley

Program 718: Wood carver LaVon Williams; the African American Theatre Program at the University of Louisville; the "Recovering Is a Beautiful Thing" art exhibit; and music by the Big Maracas, a Latin band from Lexington

Program 723: Husband-and-wife folk artists Ronald and Jessie Cooper from Fleming County, the Leeds Center for the Arts in Winchester, and music by Louisville singer/songwriter Janis Pruitt.

Program 724: Lexington landscape artist Elsie Kay Harris, a visit to the Explorium of Lexington, and a taste of Indian classical music. Accessed May, 2015.

(above: Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Kentucky Landscape, c. 1900, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Books, listed by year of publication, with most recently published book listed first:

Collecting Kentucky 1790-1860, by Genevieve Baird Lacer and & Libby Turner Howard. Cherry Valley Publications LLC, 2013. Scott Coffman of the Louisville Courier-Journal said "... This is the history of Kentucky told through objects, providing a better understanding of who we are by what we cherish. It features more than just furniture: brilliant (and rare) silver pieces, primitive works, state seals, stitchery and more."

Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, 1802-1920, by Estill Pennington, University Press of Kentucky, 2010. Amazon says: "...From 1802, when the young artist William Edward West began painting portraits on a downriver trip to New Orleans, to 1918, when John Alberts, the last of Frank Duveneck's students, worked in Louisville, a wide variety of portrait artists were active in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley. Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, 18021920 charts the course of those artists as they painted the mighty and the lowly, statesmen and business magnates as well as country folk living far from urban centers. Paintings by each artist are illustrated, when possible, from The Filson Historical Society collection of some 400 portraits representing one of the most extensive holdings available for study in the region."

Kentucky: The Master Painters from the Frontier Era to the Great Depression, by Estill Curtis Pennington, University of South Carolina Press, 2008. Amazon says: "...In the twenty-five years since The Kentucky Painter from the Frontier Era to the Great War opened at the University of Kentucky Art Museum, interest in the topic has steadily increased. This volume is a survey of the major painters of note, organized by chronological and thematic topics. Readers will recognize some of the familiar names here, especially Matthew Harris Jouett and Paul Sawyier. But they may be surprised by the work of little-known but accomplished artists whose work merits serious consideration as part of the astonishingly vibrant artistic tradition in Kentucky."

Dreaming over Woods & Hills: Kentucky Artists in the Humphreys Collection, by Arthur F. Jones (Author), Harriet W. Fowler (Introduction). 131 pages. Publisher: Univ of Kentucky Art Museum (August 1992). ISBN-10: 1882007034. ISBN-13: 978-1882007035.

Kentucky Crafts, by George, Phyllis. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1989: 203 pages. ISBN-10: 051757327X. ISBN-13: 978-0517573273

Kentucky Expatriates: Natives and Notable Visitors, the Early 1800's to the Present, by Owensboro Museum of Fine Art (Ky.). Published by Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, 1984. 155 pages

The Kentucky Tradition in American Landscape Painting: From the Early 19th Century to the Present. by Arthur Frederick Jones, Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro Museum of Fine Art (Ky). Published by Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, 1983. 155 pages. Google Books says: "Catalog of an exhibition held at the museum October 9-November 23, 1983; catalog prepared by Arthur F. Jones"

The Kentucky Painter: From the Frontier Era to the Great War: Exhibition, January 25-March 15, 1981, by Arthur Frederick Jones, Bruce Weber, University of Kentucky Art Museum. Published by University of Kentucky Art Museum, 1981. 151 pages

Kentucky Ante-bellum Portraiture, By Edna Talbott Whitley, National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Published by National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 1956. 848 pages

A Preliminary Catalogue of the Kentucky Portrait Gallery, by The J. B. Speed Art Museum, J.B. Speed Art Museum, The J. B. Speed Art Museum. Published by J.B. Speed, 1949. 26 pages

The Old Masters of the Bluegrass: Jouett, Bush, Grimes, Frazer, Morgan, Hart, By Samuel Woodson Price. Published by J. P. Morton & company, 1902. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Jul 27, 2007. 181 pages

(above: Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Kentucky Fishing Scene, c. 1912, watercolor and gouache on paper, 14 x 21.2 in. Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Articles:

Bugler, Peggy A. "Kentucky's Traditional Arts and Crafts: A Bibliography." Kentucky Folklore Record vol. 26, January December (1-4), 1980

Estill Curtis Pennington, "Kentucky Painters 1819-1935" American Art Review, September-October 2008 (Volume XX, Number 5)

(above: Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Canoing, c. 1900, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

TFAO's Distinguished Artists catalogue provides online access to biographical information for artists associated with this state. Also, Search Resource Library for online articles and essays concerning both individual artists associated with this state's history and the history of art centers and museums in this state. Resource Library articles and essays devoted to individual artists and institutions are not listed on this page.

(above: John Hazeltine, Not Forgotten, Kentucky Bluegrass Country, 2023, photograph)

Return to Individual States Art History Project

TFAO catalogues:

American Representational Art links to dozens of topics in American Representational Art

Audio Online a catalogue of online streaming audio recordings

Collections of Historic American Art notable private collections

Distinguished Artists a national registry of historic artists

Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History a catalogue of articles and essays that describe the evolution of American art from the inception of the United States to WWII.

Illustrated Audio Online streaming online narrated slide shows

Articles and Essays Online substantive texts published outside of Resource Library

Videos Online a comprehensive catalogue of online full motion videos streamed free to viewers

Videos an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format

Books general reference books published on paper

Interactive media media in CD-ROM format

Magazines paper-published magazines and journals

*Tag for expired US copyright of object image:

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