In celebration of the 200th anniversary of statehood for Mississippi, the Mississippi Museum of Art will open its newest exhibit on December 9, 2017. The exhibit, Picturing Mississippi, 1817 – 2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise, will be on view until July 8, 2018. This will be the sixteenth presentation in The Annie Laurie Swaim Hearin Memorial Exhibition Series.
The aesthetic goal of the exhibition is to assemble original artworks in various media of the highest quality to illuminate the perception and depiction of Mississippi over more than two centuries. With at least 175 works by more than 100 different artists, the exhibition is unprecedented in the history of the state. A great many of these works will be lent by prestigious national institutions such as the Harvard University Art Museums; the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Featured will be individual masterpieces by artists seldom exhibited in the state, including George Caleb Bingham, Robert Indiana, James Audubon, Louis Bahin, Thomas Hart Benton, Norman Rockwell, and John Steuart Curry – as well as a plethora of works by native Mississippians such as James Tooley, Jr., Eudora Welty, William Dunlap, and Randy Hayes.
The exhibition will proceed chronologically and thematically, giving visitors the opportunity to perceive the evolving depiction of Mississippi – first by foreign-born artists as a place of immense beauty and prosperity, and later as a land laid waste by civil war, farmed by sharecroppers, fractured by segregation, and changed forever by the struggle for civil rights. Eventually, new voices rose to express the extraordinary artistic creativity of Mississippians of all races.
“Picturing Mississippi allows us the unique opportunity to look at our state’s history through the creative lens of an artist,” said Betsy Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. “We are excited to share art made about Mississippi’s people, places and events with the world. We hope the exhibition will inspire honest conversation about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we hope to be.”
A significant component of the bicentennial exhibition will also feature art made in response to the events, victims, and heroes of the civil rights movement in the South, dovetailing with exhibitions on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History. The opening of Picturing Mississippi coincides with the opening of the 2 Mississippi Museums as the result of a partnership with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
For more information on the Mississippi Museum of Art, click here.
The aesthetic goal of the exhibition is to assemble original artworks in various media of the highest quality to illuminate the perception and depiction of Mississippi over more than two centuries. With at least 175 works by more than 100 different artists, the exhibition is unprecedented in the history of the state. A great many of these works will be lent by prestigious national institutions such as the Harvard University Art Museums; the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Featured will be individual masterpieces by artists seldom exhibited in the state, including George Caleb Bingham, Robert Indiana, James Audubon, Louis Bahin, Thomas Hart Benton, Norman Rockwell, and John Steuart Curry – as well as a plethora of works by native Mississippians such as James Tooley, Jr., Eudora Welty, William Dunlap, and Randy Hayes.
The exhibition will proceed chronologically and thematically, giving visitors the opportunity to perceive the evolving depiction of Mississippi – first by foreign-born artists as a place of immense beauty and prosperity, and later as a land laid waste by civil war, farmed by sharecroppers, fractured by segregation, and changed forever by the struggle for civil rights. Eventually, new voices rose to express the extraordinary artistic creativity of Mississippians of all races.
“Picturing Mississippi allows us the unique opportunity to look at our state’s history through the creative lens of an artist,” said Betsy Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. “We are excited to share art made about Mississippi’s people, places and events with the world. We hope the exhibition will inspire honest conversation about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we hope to be.”
A significant component of the bicentennial exhibition will also feature art made in response to the events, victims, and heroes of the civil rights movement in the South, dovetailing with exhibitions on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History. The opening of Picturing Mississippi coincides with the opening of the 2 Mississippi Museums as the result of a partnership with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
For more information on the Mississippi Museum of Art, click here.
George Ohr (1857-1918), Biloxi Lighthouse Pot, ca. 1895. glazed ceramic. Collection of the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Gift of Elizabeth Munro and the O'Keefe Family Foundation, 1998.007.001.
George Ohr (1857-1918), Petticoat Vase, ca. 1898. glazed ceramic. Collection of the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Gift of David Whitney in honor of Frank and Berta Gehry, 2003.012.001.
Noah Saterstrom (born 1974), Road to Shubuta, 2016. oil on canvas. © Courtesy of the artist.
Randy Hayes (b. 1944), House on Mound (Delta), 2015. oil and photograph on canvas. Collection of Eason and Ellen Leake. © Courtesy of the artist.
Theora Hamblett (1895-1977), Hamblett Hill, 1965. oil on canvas. Collection of the University of Mississippi Museum. Bequest of Theora Hamblett, 1978.11.9.
John Steuart Curry (1897-1946), Mississippi Noah, 1935. lithograph. Collection of the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson. Museum purchase with funds from the Rexford T. Brown Fund, 2016.039.
{Blog post by Jill Dale. A special thank you to the Mississippi Museum of Art for the pictures of a few pieces that will be featured in the exhibit.}
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