–by Mark Andrew Harris, Founder & Director
Our third stop on our trip through Georgia and the Carolinas was Charlotte, North Carolina. While in Charlotte, we visited North Carolina's oldest art museum, the Mint Museum, established in 1936.
The Mint Museum-Uptown | Charlotte, North Carolina
The original Mint Museum building has served as a federal courthouse, wartime Red Cross headquarters, a U.S. Military recruitment office, American Legion headquarters, and a branch of the United States Mint. Threatened with demolition in 1933, a small group of citizens led by Mary Myers Dwelle worked to secure funding to save and relocate the building to its current site at 2730 Randolph Road in Charlotte's Eastover neighborhood. In 1936, the Mint Museum Randolph opened as North Carolina's first art museum. Today, this branch of the Mint Museum houses art of the ancient Americas, ceramics and decorative arts, and European and African art, among other collections.
In 1999, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design opened in the Montaldo building in Uptown Charlotte. In 2004, the museum established a permanent collection gallery presenting the works of Romare Bearden. The current Mint Museum Uptown opened on October 1, 2010. Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston designed the 145,000-square-foot Uptown building. Today, the Mint Museum Uptown, located at 500 South Tryon Street, houses the internationally renowned Craft + Design collection and outstanding collections of American and contemporary art.
SOUTHERN/MODERN: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century | The Mint Museum-Uptown, Charlotte, North Carolina
Central to our visit to Charlotte was the exhibition Southern/Modern: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century, is the first exhibition to present a comprehensive survey of works by artists working in the American South in the first half of the 20th century features artwork by Dixie Art Colony artists Frank Applebee, Richard Coe, Lamar Dodd, John Kelly Fitzpatrick, Carlos Alpha "Shiney" Moon, and Anne Goldthwaite, all represented in the DAC Foundation Collection.
We are pleased to note that the catalog includes a comprehensive essay about the Colony and the DAC Foundation's iconic photograph, "Diddle Daddle," the Dixie Art Colony mascot, with Sally LeBron. Although their artwork is not included, the essay also mentions Dixie Art Colonists Warree Carmichael LeBron, Arthur Walter Stewart, Karl Wolfe, Mildred Nungester Wolfe, Doris Alexander Thompson, and Genevieve McClure Southerland. Other Alabama artists included in the exhibition are Zelda Fitzgerald and New South School artists Crawford Gillis, John Lapsley, Charles Shannon, and Maltby Sykes. Widely known artists such as Frank Hartley Anderson, Walter Anderson, Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert Gwathmey are also represented in the exhibition.
A collaboration with the Georgia Museum of Art and the Mint Museum, the exhibition includes more than 100 paintings and works on paper by artists working in states below the Mason-Dixon line and as far west as those bordering the Mississippi River, as well as some artists living outside of the region who made significant bodies of work during visits. The traveling exhibition will close at the Mint Museum Uptown on February 2, 2025.
The New York Times review of the exhibition and catalog specifically mentions John Kelly Fitzpatrick and the Dixie Art Colony Foundation by name. The online review by "The New York Times" also includes a direct link to the DAC FOUNDATION website. Follow the link below to learn more about this exhibition: SOUTHERN/MODERN
Richard Blauvelt Coe | Birmingham Steel Mill, 1934 | oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1940.0031
Thomas Hart Benton | Ploughing It Under, 1934 | oil on canvas, 20.25 x 24.25 inches | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR.2006.73
Carroll Cloar | Story Told by My Mother, 1955 | casein tempera on Masonite, 28.25 x 40.25 inches | Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 80.3.16
Frank W. Applebee | Untitled, 1947 | oil on canvas, 20 x 16.25 inches | Fine Art at Auburn University, Art Department Transfer Collection
Blanche Lazzell | Painting XI (The windmill), 1928 | oil on canvas, 50 x 36 inches | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR.2006.73
Joseph Cain | Ghosts of St. Louis Cemetery, .n.d. | oil and acrylic on canvas, 46 x 62 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
far right | Carl Holty | Two Women Bathing, 1948-1950, oil on Masonite, 55.75 x 47.75 inches | Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1950.330
Grace Martin Taylor | Old White Art Colony, 1935 | white one color woodblock print on paper, 12.5 x 13.75 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Carlos Alpha "Shiney" Moon | Birmingham, 1952, watercolor on paper, 15.5 x 22.5 inches | Birmingham Museum of Art, Collection of the Art Fund, Inc., AFI.87.2018
Maltby Sykes | Shrimp Boats, 1953, oil on Masonite, 36 x 48 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Claude Howell | The Jetty, 1955, oil on canvas, 32 x 58 inches | Auckland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2014.7
Edith London | Marine Still Life, 1953, oil on canvas board, 24 x 36 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald | Poppies, circa 1938, oil on canvas, 36.25 x 26.25 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1997.0002.0001
Anna Hayward Taylor | Magnolia Grandiflora, circa 1938, color woodblock print on paper, 11 x 10 inches | Carolina Art Association, Gibbes Museum of Art, 1953.007.0042
Edith London | Marine Still Life, 1953, oil on canvas board, 24 x 36 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Grace Martin Taylor | Tabletop Still Life, circa 1938, oil on board, 24 x 20 inches | Dixion Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee, 2017.3.23
Lamar Baker | There's a Man Going 'Round Taking Names (Negro Spiritual #2), 1943, oil and tempera on canvas, 36 x 42 inches | The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, G1987.8
John Kelly Fitzpatrick | Negro Baptizing, circa 1930, oil on canvas, 42 x 49,25 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1900.0023.0002
Loïs Mailou Jones | Mob Victim (Meditation), circa 1944, oil on canvas, 41 x 25 inches | Private Collection
Crawford Gillis | In Custody (Project for a Southern Armory, 1936, watercolor on paper, 18.75 x 23.5 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 2013 .0013
George Biddle | Folly Beach Pavilion, 1937,oil on canvas, 39.5 x 50 inches | Collection of Mrs. Rachel G. Kaufman
Jewett Campbell | The Skaters, 1940, oil on canvas, 187 x 14 inches | Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, 140 .1942
John McCrady | I Can't Sleep, 1933-1948, oil glass over tempera on canvas, 35.5 x 47.5 inches | Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1989 .05.26
Burton Callicott | The Gleaners, 1936, oil on canvas, 40.25 x 28 inches | Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, 4.79
John Lapsley | The Sawmill, circa 1940, oil on linen canvas, 38 x 42 inches | The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Howard Cook | Birmingham, Alabama, 1935, conté crayon, charcoal, and colored chalk on paper, 34 x 27.75 inches | Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1967.1942
Crawford Gillis | Leaving the Mill, 1935, 19.75 x 23.25 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 2018.0010.0006
Dusti Bongé | Sunny South, 1944, oil on canvas, 34 x 27.75 inches | Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1967.1942
Thomas Hart Benton | Ozark Autumn, 1949, il on canvas, 20.75 x 32.25 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 2015 .0006
Lamar Dodd | Bargain Basement, 1937, oil on canvas, 46 x 55 inches | Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, 1992.033
Lamar Dodd | Copperhill, 1938, oil and egg tempera on linen, 28 x 50.25 inches | Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, F1974-3
Harry Louis Freund | Crossroad Forum, 1935, oil on board, 26 x 34 inches | Collection of Mark Kern, courtesy of Tyler Fine Art
Charles Shannon | The Lover, 1937, oil on canvas, 30.25 x 45 inches | Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1986 .0006
This post is the third in a series of posts about our recent trip through Georgia and the Carolinas.
Sources: SOUTHERN/MODERN: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century, Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina