The Gibbes Museum of Art is the go-to destination for quintessential Charleston and Southern art, and focuses on diversification through expanding the permanent collection to include works from a number of artists with differing perspectives. During DIG SOUTH, the Gibbes will be showcasing three special exhibitions in addition to its permanent collection of 10,000 works.
“We are thrilled to bring such a significant and exciting group of artists and artwork to the Gibbes this year,” said Angela Mack, The Gibbes Museum of Art’s executive director. “In addition to highlighting a new selection of works by African American artists and some of the South’s most renowned painters, we will be bringing highly acclaimed exhibitions from around the country that expand our understanding of creativity in the Lowcountry.”
The Gibbes Museum of Art is committed to exhibiting the highest quality art that is transformative and intellectually complex. All current and future exhibits touch Charleston, while connecting the Gibbes to the wider world of artists and museums. Each exhibit builds on the museum’s themes of conservation of the environment, social justice, health and wellness and innovation.
The following exhibitions will be shown at the Gibbes during Dig South:
Lying in Wait: Sporting Art by Ogden M. Pleissner
January 18, 2019 – May 12, 2019 | Images
A favorite among American sporting art collectors, Ogden Pleissner had a gift for capturing fleeting moments of time—the tug on a fishing line or the pregnant pause as a hunter sets his sights. Beginning in January, The Gibbes will display 48 paintings depicting scenes from Wyoming to Maine to the South Carolina Lowcountry created during Pleissner’s illustrious career that spanned from the late 1920s until his death in 1983. A renowned master of the watercolor medium, Pleissner’s paintings are luminous and expressive, yet also capture his subjects in wonderful detail. These reflective moments immerse viewers in the beauty of the land and convey the importance of protecting our natural environment. His hunting, fishing and landscape paintings reflect his deep reverence for wildlife and the natural world.
Anna Heyward Taylor: Intrepid Explorer
January 18, 2019 – May 12, 2019 | Images
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Anna Heyward Taylor is best known as one of the principal artists of the Charleston Renaissance, but her early travels often took her to exotic locations. Brought together for the first time, this exhibition showcases Taylor’s watercolors, batiks and woodblock prints inspired by her adventurous expeditions in British Guiana as a staff artist for renowned American naturalist William Beebe in the early decades of the twentieth century. Drawn from the Gibbes Museum’s collection, this exhibition features stunning watercolor paintings that have never been on view to the public. In addition, several paintings on loan from The Charleston Museum provide insight into Taylor’s scientific interests as well as her artistic pursuits.
New Acquisitions Featuring Works by African American Artists
February 22, 2019 – June 16, 2019 | Images
Featuring a selection of works by African American artists acquired by the Gibbes for its permanent collection over the last ten years, this exhibition reflects on the Gibbes collecting efforts since the opening of Prop Master: An Installation by Juan Logan and Susan Harbage Page in 2009. The artists’ provocative installation was designed to highlight the role the institution of museums plays in shaping social norms and reinforcing power structures within the community based on what it chooses to collect and exhibit and, perhaps more importantly, what works and narratives are excluded. Since the close of the Prop Master exhibition nearly ten years ago, the Gibbes has added 28 new works by African American artists, including David Driskell, Sam Doyle, Leo Twiggs, Kara Walker and Mary Jackson.
To learn more about these exhibitions or to purchase tickets, visit www.gibbesmuseum.org.
