University Art Museum
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY
606-257-5716
A Place Not Forgotten: Landscapes of the
South from the Morris Museum of Art
The University of Kentucky Art Museum has been awarded $40,000 from
the Museum Loan Network, a national collection-sharing program funded by
the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The award is one of only three implementation grants given in the country
during this funding period and represents the maximum amount allowed by
the agency. It will support the museum's organization of the exhibition,
A Place Not Forgotten: Landscapes of the South from the Morris Museum of
Art, which is scheduled through June 25, 2000. (left: Stephen Alke
(1874-1941), Tobacco Setters on a Hilltop,c. 1938, oil on canvas,
23 1/4 x 29 1/8 inches, Morrris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1991.001)
The impetus for the show is the long-term display of Southern
landscapes in the context of the 
University Art Museum's own landscapes, which are
more broadly American and European in nature. The Museum Loan Network (MLN)
encourages smaller institutions, such as the Lexington museum, to borrow
works of art from larger facilities with extensive holdings in a particular
subject. The Morris Museum of Art, located in Augusta, Georgia, is devoted
exclusively to Southern art and has a significant number of landscape paintings
and watercolors. (right: William Gilbert Gaul (1855-1919), Tennessee
Agricultural Scene, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, Morris Museum of
Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1997.013)
By displaying the Morris works alongside its own landscapes,
the University Art Museum intends to begin a dialogue with its audiences,
both the general public and faculty and students, about the nature of Southern
landscapes--their place in the imagination and memory as well as their contemporary
use.
The
exhibition features thirty-nine oils and watercolors from the Morris Museum
by Elliott Daingerfield, William Aiken Walker, Will Henry Stevens, and a
number of other artists whose works have been rediscovered and re-evaluated
in recent years. The landscapes date from the early nineteenth century up
to the 1940s and include pre-Civil War era scenes, wilderness and agrarian
views, and glimpses of small towns in a newly industrialized South. The
land itself is the constant, whether bayou, swamp, cotton field, pine forest,
or rolling grassland. (left: Elliott Daingerfield (1859-1932), Carolina
Sunlight, c. 1915, oil on canvas, 24 x 28 1/2 inches, Morris Museum
of Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1989.01.045)
Accompanying the exhibition is an illustrated catalogue
with short essays on landscape by a number of outstanding writers with Southern
connections, including Wendell Berry, Guy Davenport, John Egerton, James
Baker Hall, Bobbie Ann Mason, Ed McClanahan, Robert Morgan, Gurney Norman,
Chris Offutt, and Sarah Tate. Longer essays are contributed by William Freehling,
Professor of History at the University of Kentucky (who is coordinating
a history course with the show); J. Richard Gruber, Deputy Director of the
Morris Museum of Art; and Jessie Poesch, Professor of Art History at Tulane
University.
The Museum Loan Network--the first comprehensive national
collection-sharing program--stimulates, facilitates, and funds long-term
loans of art among U.S. institutions to enhance museums' "permanent"
installations. The MLN's program consists of two complementary components:
the MLN Directory, an illustrated online database that includes objects
available for long-term loan by museums around the country, and the MLN
grant programs, which help realize loans between institutions. Launched
in 1995, the MLN is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
and the Pew Charitable Trusts, which conceived and initiated the program,
and is administered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Office
of the Arts.
Read more about the University
Art Museum, University of Kentucky in Resource
Library Magazine
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited in this article please see America's
Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
rev. 10/18/10
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2010 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
The University of Kentucky Art Museum has been awarded $40,000 from
the Museum Loan Network, a national collection-sharing program funded by
the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The award is one of only three implementation grants given in the country
during this funding period and represents the maximum amount allowed by
the agency. It will support the museum's organization of the exhibition,
A Place Not Forgotten: Landscapes of the South from the Morris Museum of
Art, which is scheduled through June 25, 2000. (left: Stephen Alke
(1874-1941), Tobacco Setters on a Hilltop,c. 1938, oil on canvas,
23 1/4 x 29 1/8 inches, Morrris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1991.001)
