A new exhibition at the Morris Museum of Art highlights the museum’s latest acquisitions.
“We have more than new 200 acquisitions,” said Kevin Grogan, the museum’s curator and director.
Many of the pieces were purchased from gifts donated to the museum in memory of prominent figures such as Sissie Morris, co-founder of the museum, who died in April 2020, as well as some in memory of Philip Morsberger who died earlier this year from complications with COVID-19, and some items from Keith Claussen, the museum’s founding director.
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Grogan said with the museum shuttered for much of 2020, it was almost a natural thing to acquire new pieces for the permanent collection.
The new exhibition features not only paintings but mixed-media works by Bobbi Adams, Luke Alsbrook, Rolland Golden, Tommy Goodman, Myrtle Jones, Blue Sky, Edgar Hewitt Nye, Edward Rice, Hattie Saussy, Gladys Nelson Smith and Jack Spencer.
Grogan purchased some of the items through auction houses and speaks about the artists as though he knew them. Indeed, he met a couple of them, including Gladys Nelson Smith, a Kansas-born artist who lived in Maryland.
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Born in 1890, Smith died in 1980 and was a frequent guest to the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., where Grogan worked in the 1970s.
Grogan said he had been unofficially appointed as the one to talk to the “little old ladies” who visited the museum. He met her and her friends when they’d stop by. He said that she was a nice woman who still talked about having exhibitions, even in her later years.
Another artist whose work is featured in the current exhibition is Edward Rice, an internationally-viewed artist who calls North Augusta home.
His painting, “Carpenter Gothic,” offers an up-close view of the architectural style.
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Grogan remarked that Rice’s painting was designed to provide a realistic view of an older building. The artist layered paint on the rendering of the windowsill to depict a real building covered under years of different paint jobs.
Grogan said an upcoming exhibition will feature several female Savannah artists who were contemporaries of each other. Myrtle Jones started out as a hairdresser, but became one of Savannah’s most successful artists. One of her pieces is in this current exhibition. Hattie Saussy is another Savannah artist with work on display.
Baskets and glass art are also part of the exhibition.
Grogan said he is looking forward to the summer, when two Willie Tarver sculptures will be installed. A Porter Fleming Foundation grant allowed for the purchase of the folk artist’s works.
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The Morris Museum of Art is located at One 10th St. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit themorris.org.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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