Benny Andrews: The John Lewis Series
Collages and drawings
Through October 4, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, June 4, 2009, 5:30 – 7:30pm
These works are the last series created by Georgia-born artist Benny Andrews (1930-2006). The son of a sharecropper, Andrews went on to become the visual arts director of the National Endowment of the Arts with works in most of this country’s major art museums.

A painter, writer, printmaker, sculptor, book illustrator and art educator, Andrews rose to become a nationally recognized artist, activist and art advocate whose works have explored and illuminated the African American experience. Andrews gained particular recognition for his series of 18 collages chronicling the life of civil rights activist and Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. Benny Andrews: The John Lewis Series is comprised of these collages and 19 pen and ink drawings.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Congressman Lewis will attend a special event at the Museum, titled "A Conversation with John Lewis," on Sunday, July 19th.  The event is free but space is currently full; for  information or waitlist, please call the Museum at 843-238-2510.

Despite his humble origins, Benny Andrews received numerous awards, and his work is in more than 30 major art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Museum of Modern Art (NY) the Art Institute of Chicago and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. From 1982 to 1984 he served as Director of the Visual Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts.

John Lewis, the inspiration for the series that bears his name, was, like Andrews, the son of sharecroppers. During the height of the Civil Rights movement, he helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known for organizing voter registration drives and nonviolent protest events.

Lewis led the historic March 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The 600 orderly protesters were attacked by Alabama state troopers in a brutal confrontation that became known as “Bloody Sunday” and which helped bring about passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries (some sustained in South Carolina during his work for civil rights in this state), John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence. Lewis went on to become the Director of the Voter Education Project and worked extensively on this project in South Carolina in the 1960s, registering significant numbers of African Americans in this state.

John Lewis was elected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative for Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes the entire city of Atlanta, for over 20 years.

The exhibition Benny Andrews: The John Lewis Series is owned by The Center for Civil and Human Rights Partnership which is slated to open in Atlanta next year. . The works are made available to the Art Museum through Mason Murer Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta.


E.B. Lewis: Story Painter
Watercolors on paper
Through October 4, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, June 4, 2009, 5:30–7:30pm, with Artist's talk at 6pm

One of the most acclaimed artists working in children’s book illustrations today, Earl Bradley Lewis has illustrated more than 40 children’s books and been the recipient of numerous book awards including the Caldecott Honor Award and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Lewis has a second home in the Charleston area, and his illustrations often have a strong regional appeal unique to the Lowcountry. With debuting works from two forthcoming books, as well as widely recognized favorites, Lewis’s exquisite watercolors will enchant viewers and readers of all ages.

Illustrator E.B. Lewis’ subjects have ranged from historical to contemporary, and from the “big” story – such as The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman by Nikki Grimes, about the first African-American woman aviator – to the small, with images described as both sophisticated and childlike, as in Little Cliff’s First Day of School.

The majority of the illustrations in the Story Painter exhibit appear in his two most recently published books, I Want to Be Free and Langston Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

E.B. Lewis has illustrated more than 40 children’s books and has won critical acclaim for his work, including the 2003 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Aviator Elizabeth Coleman. He has received special praise for his illustrations of period works, with reviewers stating that his watercolors capture the flavor of a period or that they are reminiscent of weathered old photographs. Lewis’ work has appeared in books by such noted authors as Tololwa M. Mollel, Alice Schertle and Lucille Clifton.

Although turning down an illustration contract earlier in his career, Lewis would later assert in an interview, “Some of the best artwork in the country is being done in children’s books.”

On Lewis’ website, he describes his favorite books for illustration as those with “strong human interest stories. The kind that evoke emotion . . . stories that touch the heart.”

While best known for his book illustrations, Lewis has also worked as a graphic designer and art educator. His watercolor paintings have been sold and exhibited nationally, and his works hang in such distinguished collections as the Pew Charitable Trust.

Jack Thompson: The Wonder Years

Myrtle Beach Photographs from the '50s and '60s
April 30 – Aug. 30, 2009
Gallery talks by Jack Thompson on July 22 and August 20 at 2pm

Photographer Jack Thompson has chronicled Myrtle Beach’s history since the early 1950s, becoming in the process a local legend himself. Now his photographs are feature in Jack Thompson: The Wonder Years; Myrtle Beach Photographs from the ’50s and ’60s.

Jack Thompson launched his photography career as a 13-year-old, with a summer job at a two-minute photo booth at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion, and has been widely recognized for his efforts to document the growth and evolution of the Grand Strand, Horry County and Myrtle Beach. A mere five years out of high school, he opened Jack Thompson Studios, at which the photographer – still snapping pictures – this year marks his 50th anniversary.

Thompson is said to have snapped more than 100,000 images of the beach lifestyle, many of which have been widely published and included in his 2003 book Memories of Myrtle Beach.

Jack Thompson: The Wonder Years comprises 50 photographs that capture the growth and evolution of the Myrtle Beach community. Hurricane Hazel, Sun Fun festivals, and the glory days of the Pavilion have all caught the keen eye of this homegrown photographer.

Included in this exhibit are photographs of onetime “landmarks” such as the Donut Diner, the Traveler’s Motel, Fat Harold’s and Gene’s Pool Room. Other shots recall the Miss South Carolina pageants, lifeguards on the beach and Fourth of July fireworks.

More poignant, especially to longtime Myrtle Beach residents, are Thompson’s photos of the storied Ocean Forest Hotel, before and during its demolition in 1974 – an event that inspired a movement to preserve Myrtle Beach’s architectural past. (Those efforts included saving and relocating the 1924 Springmaid Villa, which now houses the Art Museum.)

Not content to merely observe and document, Thompson would later become chairman of the All-Aboard Committee, through which he has been instrumental in saving and restoring the 1937 Myrtle Beach Train Depot. That structure is now listed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. Thompson also has served on the board of trustees of the Horry County Museum for the last 10 years.