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Draped in Time
with Landon Bryant
Loïs Jones at La Biennale 2022
Requiem for Mother Emanuel
Alice Smith in
Where the Crawdads Sing
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Current & Past Exhibitions
Current
Exhibitions
September 3, 2024 through December 13, 2024
The League of Extraordinary Artists
Richardson Family Art Museum, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC
Since its inception 150 years ago, the Art Students League of New York has been a leader in defining and nurturing American art. Spanning a period nearly as long as the life of the League itself, the twenty-five paintings featured celebrate the legacy of the League and the dynamic exchange it has historically facilitated between Northern and Southern art communities. This exhibition offers a cross-section of the diversity, longevity, and reach not only of the Art Students League, but more broadly of the extraordinary impact of American art.
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November 9, 2024 through February 8, 2025
More Southern/Modern
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
As an extension of the successful traveling exhibition
Southern/Modern
, which received rave reviews in
The New York Times
and is currently on view at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, The Johnson Collection is delighted to present twenty-three additional works of art that showcase the diversity and impact of modernism in the American South.
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Past
Exhibitions
August 07, 2024 through October 26, 2024
Plate to Palette: Seconds
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
An exhibition so delicious, we had to serve up seconds! In 2014, The Johnson Collection launched a celebration of Spartanburg’s food heritage with Plate to Palette, an exhibition that paired paintings from the American South with original recipes from representatives of our local culinary communities. Now, ten years later, we invite you to be our guest for a second helping of gastronomic artistry, as a new line-up of Spartanburg chefs, bakers, and restauranteurs contribute recipes inspired by works from The Johnson Collection.
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May 08, 2024 through July 20, 2024
Draped in Time: Spanish Moss and the Tapestry of the South
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
Draped in Time
, guest curated by Landon Bryant, weaves together artistic perspectives spanning nearly two centuries, uniting the South’s complex history and rich cultures under the ethereal veil of Spanish moss—an enduring symbol of the complicated, dynamic, and often misunderstood identity of Southern art and society. In the landscapes, genre scenes, scientific treatments, and conceptual explorations featured in this exhibition, Spanish moss performs multifarious roles as a recurrent backdrop for the many diverse and interconnected stories that the South has to tell.
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May 04, 2024 through September 08, 2024
Our Own Work, Our Own Way
The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
Having faced resistance from the art world for decades, many of these artists are just beginning to come out of the shadows of art history. Women artists in the South particularly encountered resistance in their quest to gain parity, especially when their mode of expression was modernist in style or subject. Comprised of work from the 1930s to 1960s, “Our Own Work, Our Own Way” champions a roster of artists whose aesthetic achievements transcended convention and invigorated the South’s modern milieu.
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February 02, 2024 through May 19, 2024
Elevation from Within: The Study of Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
An homage to HBCU alumni and professors whose educational backgrounds chronicle a vital chapter of American history and whose aesthetic achievements have made an indelible mark, curated by Dr. Leo Twiggs.
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January 31, 2024 through April 20, 2024
Beyond the Illustration
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
Illustration is all around us, from our formative childhood encounters with picture books and cartoons to the advertising and images of mass culture. For Illustrators turned “fine artists” it never quite leaves their technique and style. Such is the case for Philip Morsberger, whose painting style is influenced by childhood comics and Palmer Schoppe’s expressive characters honed from his time as a Disney Studio illustrator. But what is an illustrator and what makes an illustration? Beyond the Illustration features artists who worked in various commercial media which is exhibited in tandem with examples from their more traditional fine art careers.
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November 08, 2023 through January 20, 2024
Connections & Formulations
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
Connections & Formulations highlights two modern artistic powerhouses, Anni and Josef Albers. The show features, for the first time in Spartanburg, all nine silkscreens from Anni Albers’ Connections portfolio. This series visualizes the artist’s explorations and mastery of weaving and printmaking connecting the practices through her sixty-year career. Displayed concurrently are selections from Josef Albers’ groundbreaking Formulation : Articulation, a visual teaching tool of color theory and form.
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August 30, 2023 through December 08, 2023
Roots/Routes: Mobility and Displacement in the American South
Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC
Throughout the history of the American South, war, ecological disasters, and enslavement (among other events) have spurred the movement of people. This exhibition investigates the ways in which mobility has affected the trajectories of Southern Art. Including works from the nineteenth century to the present, this exhibition asks audiences to consider the role that displacement, mobility, and place have played and continue to play in the histories of the American South.
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August 16, 2023 through October 28, 2023
The Sight of Sound
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC
The Johnson Collection and the Spartanburg Philharmonic have collaborated on an exhibition celebrating the latter's 95 years in our community. Curated by Dr. Peter Kay, the artwork featured in the exhibition serves as a visual complement to the season premiere concert on September 16. Programming will include a gallery talk with Dr. Kay on September 21 and live music in the gallery on October 19.
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April 19, 2023 through July 01, 2023
A Big Year: Avian Art in the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC
Whether lured by their intricate songs, intrigued by their ability to fly, or captivated by their colorful plumage, humans have long been enthralled by birds. Over the ages, this fascination has manifested itself in religion, myth, music, art, literature, décor, and design. Artistic depictions of birds—as symbols of freedom, power, wisdom, or peace—date to the dawn of civilization. Avian art advanced exponentially in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and as contemporary culture confronts the dangers of climate change—and its threat to avian habitat, health, migration, and survival—humanity’s need to meaningfully connect
with
and
to
nature is acute.
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January 18, 2023 through April 08, 2023
Surrounded by Forms: Abstract Scenes from the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery
Traditional landscape art presents viewers with mostly recognizable images, from sweeping mountain vistas to lush meadows, tangled marshes, urban panoramas, and pastoral countryside. Whether familiar or foreign, actual or imagined, such picturesque scenes allow artists to communicate all manner of spiritual allegory and agrarian nostalgia. By contrast, the modernist painters featured in this exhibition bring to their scenes the techniques and perspective of abstraction.
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October 19, 2022 through January 07, 2023
Face to Face: 200 Years of Portraiture from the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery
Portraits have functioned throughout history to memorialize powerful and significant figures. Among the portraits in this exhibition are representations of Rachel and Hilmer Schumacher, painted by the artist Joshua Johnson. What do these portraits tell us about how the Schumachers saw themselves, how they wanted us to see them, and how Johnson himself perhaps saw them?
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September 01, 2022 through December 15, 2022
McCallum & Halsey: At Home and Abroad
Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC
Throughout their sixty-year marriage, noted South Carolina artists Corrie McCallum and William Halsey explored shared and separate idioms in their art. The two were united by their dedication to enriching their local arts community, as well by as their joint passion for travel to faraway parts of the globe as a source of creative inspiration.
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July 13, 2022 through October 08, 2022
Nature I Loved: Alice Ravenel Huger Smith and the Carolina Lowcountry
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Alice Ravenel Huger Smith's luminous paintings reflect a body of work characterized by her experimentations in various mediums and mastery of watercolors. Smith is best remembered for her scenic views of Charleston and the surrounding wilds of the Carolina Lowcountry on display in
Nature I Loved
at TJC Gallery.
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April 02, 2022 through June 24, 2022
Making Their Mark
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Pastels—a soft, crayon-like pigment stick—have been used by artists for centuries. Through this medium's malleability, artists can achieve a variety of results, from the diffused abstractions of William Halsey, to the meticulous and delicate replication of figures by Sigmund Abeles. Will Stevens and Elizabeth Verner appreciated pastels for their experimental qualities, investing new application techniques to express their unique perceptions of the world.
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January 05, 2022 through March 25, 2022
What's in a Frame?
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
From gilded nineteenth century craftsmanship to the humble and hand-painted, fine art frames captivate artists and audiences alike. TJC Gallery’s upcoming exhibition,
What's in a Frame?
, invites viewers to explore the fascinating world of Southern art framing.
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September 15, 2021 through December 10, 2021
We Speak of Exchange: Immigrant and Expatriate Artists in the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Curated by TJC graduate fellow Mary Kathryn Alexander, TJC Gallery's current exhibition presents the work of more than twenty artists from the Johnson Collection—all first-generation immigrants and expatriates—who have made significant contributions to the art landscape of the American South.
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June 09, 2021 through September 04, 2021
Reflections on a Southern Summer
TJC Gallery
TJC Gallery's current exhibition seeks to stoke the embers of memory and honor the abiding allure that the South holds as both a destination and a homeplace.
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March 24, 2021 through June 05, 2021
The Art of the Acquisition
TJC Gallery
TJC Gallery's current exhibition illuminates the curatorial considerations that further the Johnson Collection's stewardship of Southern art.
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February 06, 2021 through July 18, 2021
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection
Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia
By elevating Southern women artists whose stories, in many cases, have been ignored or merely unsung, TJC’s latest traveling exhibition hopes to draw attention to their meaningful careers and enduring legacies.
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January 20, 2021 through March 19, 2021
Excellence & Emancipation: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
TJC Gallery's upcoming exhibition showcases works created by such legendary artists as Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Hale Woodruff, among others. In their respective roles as makers, teachers, historians, and activists, the 18 featured artists had profound influences on black art in the early twentieth century, and their legacies continue to inform today’s creative and cultural conversation.
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October 14, 2020 through December 23, 2020
Wider Horizons: Artistic Travel in the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery
With works representing an array of locales and artistic movements, TJC Gallery’s current exhibition is an homage to the allure and lasting influence of the artist’s journey.
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July 29, 2020 through October 03, 2020
Pursuits on Paper
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Guest-curated by independent art historian and author Martha Severens, TJC Gallery’s latest exhibition showcases works on paper, executed in a variety of media, and all created by women artists with ties to the South.
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May 08, 2020 through July 24, 2020
Care Through Conservation: Behind the Scenes at the Johnson Collection
thejohnsoncollection.org
Curated by intern MacKenna Smith, TJC Gallery's latest digital exhibition is an illuminating look into the world of art conservation and restoration.
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October 30, 2019 through January 24, 2020
Virtues & Vices
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
In our pluralistic society, moral disagreement is inevitable. What makes some behaviors and characters praiseworthy, but others condemnable? This exhibition invites you to reflect, question, and explore the ways in which art can depict moral virtue and vice, and the evaluative stances that artists might take toward their subject matter.
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September 03, 2019 through December 14, 2019
Southern Gothic: Literary Intersections with Art from the Johnson Collection
Richardson Family Art Museum, upper level, Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists employed a potent visual language to transcribe the tensions between the South’s idyllic aura and its historical realities.
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August 07, 2019 through October 25, 2019
Cut & Paste: Collage as an Artistic Practice
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
By assembling paper, cloth, wood, or metal, artists since the early twentieth century have manipulated materials to produce exciting and sculptural works of art which break free from two-dimensional form.
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May 15, 2019 through August 02, 2019
The Power of Our Own Spirit: Mental Health and Artists of the American South
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Whether grappling with debilitating depression, substance abuse, or a psychiatric disorder, the Southern artists featured in this exhibition produced compelling bodies of work that demonstrate their artistic gifts and serve as a testament to their courage.
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November 15, 2018 through February 08, 2019
The Kindred Spirit: William Merritt Chase and His Southern Students
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
For America's premier Impressionist, teaching was an integral component of his personal aesthetic development and his resounding professional success.
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September 04, 2018 through November 12, 2018
The Art and Soul of the Hunt
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Southern art, history, and sport merge in this autumnal examination of an important Lowcountry legacy.
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August 28, 2018 through December 13, 2018
Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection
Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Picturesque, light-filled canvases illustrate how an international aesthetic flourished in the American South around the turn of the century.
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June 21, 2018 through August 24, 2018
Every Child Is An Artist
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
This collaborative exhibition celebrates the opening of the Children’s Museum of the Upstate’s new Spartanburg site and the artistry of local young ones.
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April 19, 2018 through June 17, 2018
Is It A True Likeness?
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Fact or fiction? This student-curated exhibition explores the continuum and the contradictions of depictions of women in Southern art.
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January 18, 2018 through March 26, 2018
Optical Illusions: Geometry, Color, and Movement
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
This revelatory exhibition tests the maxim that “the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend,” by bringing Southern investigations of a modern movement into focus.
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August 31, 2017 through January 12, 2018
To Teach Is To Learn: Lessons in African American Art of the South
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A survey of works by African American artists of the South that spans the centuries and showcases student interpretations.
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May 17, 2017 through September 27, 2017
The Mountains Are Calling: High Seasons in the Carolinas from the Johnson Collection
Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina
An assemblage of transcendent mountain landscapes help inaugurate a stunning new arts destination on a historic campus.
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May 02, 2017 through August 18, 2017
Musical Fluidity: A Visual Duet
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A collaborative project between the Johnson Collection and the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra, this exhibition explores shared aesthetic values in art and music.
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March 09, 2017 through April 21, 2017
Picture of America: Art of the Southern Scene
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
From Kansas cornfields to Carolina cotton, this exhibition examines how the American Scene movement found its voice in Southern art.
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November 17, 2016 through March 03, 2017
Southern Roots: Selections of Self-Taught Art from the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
As diverse as its makers, the art in
Southern Roots
ranges from traditional still life to abstract mixed media wall sculpture.
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June 16, 2016 through July 28, 2016
minumental/MONUMENTAL
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Varied in size and subject matter, the paintings and prints in
minumental/MONUMENTAL
invite visitors to revel in the wonder and awe of amplified or minute scale.
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February 04, 2016 through May 27, 2016
A Process of Learning: Educating the Avant-Garde at Black Mountain College
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
An exploration of the intersections, dialogues, and rivalries that occurred between faculty members and students at this experimental art enclave.
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December 03, 2015 through January 29, 2016
"To Be Someone and Not Something": Southern Women Artists' Quest for Education
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
An investigation of the educational refuges and roadblocks female artists experienced at the turn of the twentieth century.
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September 17, 2015 through November 27, 2015
Uptown Funk/Downtown Art
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A spirited—and perhaps surprising—exhibition that encourages viewers to step outside their comfort zones and get in touch with their inner funk.
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June 02, 2015 through September 10, 2015
Coming Home: Selections from the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A selection of Southern works that serve as powerful visual representations of the concept of "home."
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March 19, 2015 through May 28, 2015
Beauty and Pattern in Common Things
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A preview presentation of works by women artists featured in the collection in advance of a major touring exhibition.
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December 04, 2014 through February 26, 2015
The Elemental South: Visions of the Southern Landscape
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Depictions that elucidate the complex connection between humans and the land on which they live.
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October 11, 2014 through May 28, 2017
From New York to Nebo: The Artistic Journey of Eugene Thomason
An examination of the life and career of the North Carolina painter who adapted the Ashcan aesthetic into a distinctive regionalist style.
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September 18, 2014 through November 28, 2014
Reflections of South Carolina
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A complement to the book of the same title, this exhibition features work by South Carolina artists—either native-born or adopted sons and daughters—who find inspiration here.
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July 10, 2014 through September 10, 2014
Behind the Lines: Artist-Soldiers in the Johnson Collection
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Showcasing the eclectic—and largely non-military—work of artists who served in the American armed forces from the Civil War through twentieth-century conflicts.
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April 17, 2014 through July 03, 2014
From Plate to Palette
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
In the South, the maxim "you are what you eat" carries deep cultural significance, as borne out in this selection of appetizing pictures.
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February 20, 2014 through April 02, 2014
Beyond the Harlem Renaissance
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Mounted in honor of Black History Month, this exhibition celebrates the achievements of twentieth-century African American artists.
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December 05, 2013 through January 30, 2014
Religious Art of the American South: Sacred Spaces and Gathering Places
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Steeped in spirituality, this exhibition is a powerful reminder that "without art, we should have no idea of the sacred."
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October 22, 2013 through December 21, 2013
Vases, Vessels, Cutlery, and Cloth: Still Life Selections from the Johnson Collection
Spartanburg Art Museum, Spartanburg, South Carolina
An artist’s choice of objects to depict in a still life composition may offer telling commentary, as evidenced by these nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings.
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September 19, 2013 through November 27, 2013
Life is But a Dream: Explorations of Surreality in Southern Art
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Selections from the TJC’s twentieth-century holdings illustrate the surrealist revolution and evolution in the American South.
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May 10, 2013 through May 31, 2013
Illuminating Hub Cities: The Depiction of Industry and Agriculture in the South
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
As the American Scene art movement unfolded nationwide, Southern artists recorded workday activities in their own region.
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April 18, 2013 through May 06, 2013
Rock, Paper, Scissors
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
A riveting selection of works by South Carolina modernist William Halsey evinces his ingenuity and resourcefulness.
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December 07, 2012 through March 01, 2013
"Awakened from Years of Slumber": The Economic Impact of the Charleston Renaissance Painters
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
The artists of the Charleston Renaissance, both native-born and visiting, played a vital part in the city's economic revitalization during the first half of the twentieth century.
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October 18, 2012 through November 26, 2012
Abstracting the South
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Southern art is much more than traditional subject matter or realistic representation, as this selection of Abstract Expressionist works documents.
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