Greenville County Museum of Art

Jul 28, 2024
Sundays at 2: Gallery Talk with Artist Ashley Norwood Cooper

Join artist Ashley Norwood Cooper, born and raised in Greenville, to learn more about her background and the influences behind her large-scale figurative paintings. Informed by Abstract Expressionism, Cooper's work depicts intimate, middle-class life in vibrant colors applied with bold, expressive brushstrokes.

ANTIQUES, FINE ART & DESIGN WEEKEND | OCTOBER 18-20, 2024
Mark your calendars! This year's featured speaker is esteemed interior designer Mark D. Sikes, known for all-American sensibilities and a fresh take on classical aesthetics. Check back here for updates and ticket information.

CLOSING SUNDAY, JULY 28
"This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect"
This visiting exhibition will come to a close this weekend, so if you're the kind of person who waits until the last minute... it's time to plan your visit!

MUSEUM HOURS:
Monday-Tuesday | Closed
Wednesday-Saturday | 10am-5pm
Sunday | 1pm-5pm

On Sunday afternoons, the Museum offers special programs designed to add something special to your time in the galleries. Stop by today to get your groove on with Steve McGaha, back by popular demand with his unique mix of traditional music from the Southeast.

2pm | Free

The youngest of eleven children, Thomas A. Sills (1914-2000) was born on a farm in Castalia, North Carolina. He moved several times during his childhood, attending school intermittently but never finishing his education. As a boy, Sills worked in a greenhouse, an experience that heightened his fascination with colors, which he would rely on heavily to create the emotional impact of his Abstract Expressionist paintings.

Primarily self-taught, Sills began working with materials from his wife Jean Reynal's mosaic studio, painting with rags, housepainter brushes, and even his bare hands. The artist showed widely in museums and galleries in the 1960s and 70s, and his work is held in collections across the country.

The painting shown here is currently featured in "Collection Highlights: African-American Art."

"Blue Flames"
1957
oil on canvas
42 x 50 inches

Up for an adventure this weekend? Stop by the Museum and explore our newest exhibition by artist Ashley Norwood Cooper.

A Greenville native now based in Upstate New York, Cooper's figurative paintings depict intimate, middle-class life in vibrant colors applied with bold, expressive brushstrokes. Optimistic and hopeful, her scenes of seeming domestic tranquility also hint at the unpredictability and fragility of family life and community.

Want to learn more? Museum Member's will receive an invitation to a reception with the artist on Sunday, July 28. You can join in person next time you visit the GCMA.

How's this for a "meet-cute" story?
Lee and Joan visited the GCMA last week with two different retirement community groups who arrived at the same time for a tour. Turns out, they were friends and neighbors who hadn't seen each other for many years! It was a heartwarming reunion and a lot of fun.

Grab a friend and make some new memories at the Museum. We're open today from 10am-5pm.

The contributions of South Carolina artists to our culture are as varied and rich as the stories of the artists themselves. Selected from the GCMA permanent collection, "Art and Artists of South Carolina: For Real" highlights 22 works informed by the realist tradition depicting the state’s landscapes, residents, and wildlife. Featured artists include sculptor Grainger McKoy and watercolorists Mary Whyte and Stephen Scott Young along with West Fraser, Andy Lenaghan, Bill McCullough, and John Moore.

William McCullough (1948-2022)
"Sunday Morning"
2006
oil on canvas
H. 50-1/4 x W. 60-1/4”

Sundays at 2: Music in the Galleries

Join us on Sunday afternoon for a gallery concert by guitarist Steve McGaha, 2003 recipient of the Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award. He'll perform traditional blues and folk music from the southeast.
mcgaha

We are buzzing with excitement about Wednesday's opening of Ashley Norwood Cooper's solo exhibition at the GCMA. On view from July 17-September 8, you'll definitely want to make time to visit while it's here.

Mark your calendars for Sunday, July 29 at 2pm for a gallery talk by the artist.

SUNDAY AT 2
In this Shakespeare classic, two very different couples fall in love – but who is really pulling the strings? Join Greenville Shakespeare this afternoon for the classic "Much Ado About Nothing." And bonus, this summer Shakespeare is inside! Very cool, just like the costumes for this hilarious production. Greenville Summer Shakespeare

free event | seating is limited

Artist Benny Andrews (1930-2006) was one of ten children born into his rural Georgia family, and the first of them to graduate high school, despite the limited time available for sharecroppers to attend school. He went on to college, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and later established himself in the Harlem artist community.

In 1969, Andrews was part of a group of artists that founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, Inc, to protest the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s failure to include any African American artists in the exhibition, “Harlem on My Mind.” Their primary goal as activists was to push the city’s museums to include African American artists in their exhibitions and collections, and to ensure their voices were shared as part of the American art story.

For more than forty years, Benny Andrews dedicated himself to activism and education in his community, all the while creating a prolific body of work. In speaking of his reputation as an activist, the artist said, “ It takes a lot of people to make a little thing. What I did--and a large number of people I was fortunate to be a part of--it’s like a relay race. And we were lucky we had the bar a little while. But we got it from somebody, and we’ll pass it on to somebody.”

"The Arrival"
1960
oil and collage on canvas
H. 51-1/4 x W. 93-3/4”

On view in "Collection Highlights: African-American Art"

One of the most striking aspects of Andrew Wyeth's work is his attention to detail, which brings subjects to life in a way that manages to be realistic and abstract at the same time. He skillfully captures the subtle nuances of light and shadow, adding depth and dimension to his paintings, making them feel almost tangible to the viewer.

Come explore "Andrew Wyeth: Eight Decades of Watercolor," the GCMA's current selection of works from our extensive permanent collection.

Sundays at 2: Shakespeare in the Studio
July 14, | 2pm

Join us for a hilarious production of "Much Ado About Nothing!" For 24 seasons the Greenville Shakespeare has provided affordable, family-friendly, laugh-out-loud theatre to the Upstate. Every summer, the GCMA happily hosts a condensed version of their annual production here at the Museum. This year, we'll be in the art studios by the back entrance to the building. We'll see you Sunday!

"This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect"
On view through July 28

Now in her mid-eighties, the artist Aldwyth has lived and worked alone in an octagonal house overlooking a salt marsh on one of South Carolina’s sea islands since 1980. For most of her adult life she has maintained her seclusion from the larger art world while utilizing the history of art and ideas as a catalyst for complex found-object sculptures and increasingly epic-scaled collages that often recall medieval manuscripts writ large.

This retrospective spans nearly seventy years of Aldwyth’s work, beginning with photography and moving through experimental painting, assemblage, and collage while touching on personal themes and fascinations that have remained remarkably consistent throughout her career.

"Horace Day in the Lowcountry" | On view through September 8

It seems only natural that Horace Day, the son of American missionaries to China, often chose churches as his subject matter. A plein air realist, Day helped to extend the Charleston Renaissance into the post-World War II era by modernizing the genre. His fresh interpretations of typical Charleston and Lowcountry subjects documented vibrant city streets and their inhabitants, bucolic landscapes, rural cabins hidden beneath massive oaks, and churches still identifiable today by their distinctive architectural details.

Horace Talmage Day (1909-1984)
"Trinity Episcopal Church, Edisto Island"
1960
watercolor on paper

OPENING JULY 17
Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Ashley Norwood Cooper (b. 1970) received her BA from the University of Georgia, where she majored in Latin. She taught Latin for a time, before moving to Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned her MFA in Painting from Indiana University in 2000.

Cooper's work depicts intimate, middle-class life in vibrant colors applied with bold, expressive brushstrokes. Optimistic and hopeful, her scenes of seeming domestic tranquility also hint at the unpredictability and fragility of family life and community. Informed by Abstract Expressionism, her large-scale figurative paintings have been the subjects of numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States.

The GCMA eagerly anticipates the opening of her solo exhibition next week.

"Easter Eggs"
2020
oil on canvas
80 x 72 inches

In 2011, the GCMA exhibited a body of work by watercolorist Mary Whyte (b. 1953) entitled "Working South." The collection captured the essence of vanishing blue-collar professions from across ten states in the American South with sensitivity and reverence for her subjects.

"Spinner"
2007
watercolor on paper
H. 28-1/2 x W. 36-1/2”
On view now at the GCMA.

Happy Birthday to Jamie Wyeth, in 1946.

We're excited to share the GCMA will welcome an extensive exhibition of his work later this year. "Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled" is a retrospective that highlights some of the more anxious and disconcerting images featured in his paintings over the course of his career. The exhibition will have made stops at the Brandywine and Farnsworth Museums before arriving in Greenville to open on December 4.

Do you have friends visiting for the holiday weekend? Bring them by the GCMA to spend time with "Andrew Wyeth: Eight Decades of Watercolors."

THE GCMA IS CLOSED TODAY.
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"One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it." ~Jasper Johns (b. 1930)

A reminder on Independence Day to be inspired into action by our dreams.

Looking for something fun for the family... that's also free? The Greenville County Museum of Art invites visitors to sample the best in American art through its impressive permanent collection, as well as traveling exhibitions. Make time to visit soon!

Note: The GCMA will be closed tomorrow for Independence Day, but will reopen Friday for a normal weekend schedule.

The Museum will be closed on Thursday for Independence Day. As a reminder, here are our hours for the rest of the week.

Monday and Tuesday | Closed
Wednesday | 10am-5pm
Thursday | Closed for 4th of July
Friday and Saturday | 10am-5pm
Sunday | 1-5pm

SUNDAY AT 2 | Sketching in the Galleries
The Greenville Creatives Sketchbook Meetup Group is a local network of artists who get together regularly to sketch in various locations around town. Come join in the fun at this month's program, happening right here in the GCMA Sketching in the galleries will be self-guided, followed by share and discussion. You can bring your own sketchbook, or materials will be available on site.

"Andrew Wyeth: Eight Decades of Watercolors" (ongoing exhibition)

Drawn from the GCMA permanent collection, this exhibition highlights two works from each of the eight decades of Wyeth’s career, inviting viewers to explore the evolution of his life’s work.

Greenville’s Andrew Wyeth collection encompasses the full scope of the artist’s extraordinary career, including significant decade-by-decade examples, from the 1930s to the 21st century. Wyeth himself described it as “the very best collection of my watercolors in any public museum in this country.”

"Horace Day in the Low Country," continues through September 8. The exhibition of twenty paintings focuses on the artist’s work over four decades traveling along the South Carolina coast—from Charleston to Hilton Head Island.

Horace Day (1909 - 1984)
"Live Oak, Beaufort, South Carolina"
1938
oil on canvas

The GCMA exhibition "Art + History" features twelve works that offer insights into our nation's history. In the case of this painting, neither the artist's name nor the date had been recorded, although research helped determine it was painted circa 1800. It was added to the Museum's collection in 1991.

unidentified artist
"The Plan of Civilization"
oil on canvas
H. 35-7/8" x W. 49-7/8"

"This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect"

The reclusive artist Aldwyth's artistic evolution spanned nearly seventy years, beginning with photography and painting, and leading to assemblage and collage creations. All are showcased in this comprehensive exhibition, which will be on view at the GCMA through July 28.

SUNDAY AT 2 | Sketching in the Galleries
Sketching is a great way to make connections with artwork on view at the Museum, while also building your drawing and observation skills. Whether you're a beginner or more experienced, this weekend's Sunday program welcomes anyone with an interest in drawing.

The Greenville Creatives Sketchbook Meetup Group is a local network of artists who gather monthly to sketch in various locations around town. The GCMA is happy to host this month's program!

Sketching in the galleries will be self-guided, followed by share and discussion. You can bring your own sketchbook, or materials will be available on site.

OPENING JULY 17
Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Ashley Norwood Cooper received her BA from the University of Georgia, where she majored in Latin. She taught Latin for a time, before moving to Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned her MFA in Painting from Indiana University in 2000.

Cooper's work depicts intimate, middle-class life in vibrant colors applied with bold, expressive brushstrokes. Optimistic and hopeful, her scenes of seeming domestic tranquility also hint at the unpredictability and fragility of family life and community. Informed by Abstract Expressionism, her large-scale figurative paintings have been the subjects of numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States.

The GCMA looks forward to welcoming her home for an exhibition later this summer!