(Photos Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg will open “Painters and Paintings in the Early American South,” the first exhibition of its kind, on Saturday.
The new exhibit includes early American art from the region through portraits, landscapes, seascapes and other artworks covering the Atlantic coast from Maryland to the upper coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Nothing like this has been done before, having all these wonderful examples in one place at the same time,” Carolyn Weekley, Colonial Williamsburg’s Juli Grainger Curator, said in a news release. “Most importantly, the exhibition will illustrate the myriad connections between art centers of the early South, New England, the Middle Atlantic and Europe.”
Weekley assembled the exhibit after years of research and collaboration. The exhibit comprises more than 80 pieces created in or for the South between 1735 and 1800. About 40 items are on loan from other museums and private collections located in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and other states.
Weekley will present an opening day lecture about the exhibit at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Hennage Auditorium at 326 W. Francis St.
“Painters and Paintings of the Early American South” will be exhibited from Saturday through Sept. 7, 2014. Opening day admission is free. After opening day, admission is permitted through purchasing a Colonial Williamsburg admission ticket, museum ticket or Good Neighbor Pass.
A similar exhibition for works from before 1735 is planned for a 2015 opening in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Colonial Williamsburg.
Donations from the Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Ill., were used to make the exhibit and an accompanying book possible. Weekley wrote “Painters and Paintings in the Early American South,” a book co-published by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Yale University Press. The 448-page book is the first comprehensive study of the work from artists between about 1564 and 1790 and includes about 350 photographs and illustrations.
Copies of the book cost $75 and are for sale at Colonial Williamsburg’s Visitor Center at 101-A Visitor Center Drive, at Everything WILLIAMSBURG in Merchants Square, at the Museum Store at 326 W. Francis St., online or by calling 800-446-9240.
