Alice Smith is one of the most celebrated and accomplished artists of the Charleston Renaissance, well known for lyrical, tonalist watercolors. Born to a distinguished family in Charleston, she took early drawing and watercolor training at the Carolina Art Association, but was largely self-taught, developing her art through independent study, as well as associations with visiting artists and friends, including Birge Harrison, Helen Hyde, and Bertha Jaques.

In 1914, Smith contributed drawings for the book A Woman Rice Planter by Patience Pennington (Elizabeth Allston Pringle). One of the earliest historical preservationists, she also collaborated with her father, the historian D. E. H. Smith, providing architectural drawings for two important publications: Twenty Drawings of the Pringle House (1914 portfolio); and the book, The Dwelling Houses of Charleston, South Carolina (1917). Smith experimented with wood-block printing in 1917, producing exquisite, original Japanese-influenced examples.

By the 1920s, Smith began concentrating on landscape watercolors. She portrayed the creeks, marshes, and swamps of the Lowcountry in a fluid style. Smith made sketches from nature, but generally composed larger and more formal watercolors in the studio. Her study of Ernest Fenollosa’s two-volume Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art (1912) remained significant in her creation of watercolors. She was also influenced by Birge Harrison’s discipline of "memory sketches," whereby the artist intensively studied a landscape view or fragment, made sketches, and then later rendered a watercolor of the scene from memory. These methods gave her the more poetic and imaginative vision that she often sought in her work. Numerous sketches and sketchbooks also attest to Smith’s careful observation and recording of nature, through annotated pencil drawings and watercolor studies of flora and fauna.

In 1936, Smith published thirty of her watercolors in A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties, her famous, retrospective portrayal of nineteenth century rice cultivation. Although her creative production slowed in the late 1930s and 1940s due to family illness and the war, she remained active until late in life.

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A descendant of a wealthy cotton planting family from Columbia, South Carolina, she had a grandfather who owned one of the largest cotton plantations in the State. In 1929, she moved to Charleston permanently and became known for her woodblock prints of women flower vendors, usually posed against an historical structure of the city. She was one of the Charleston Renaissance group of artists, active between 1915 and 1940, that did etchings and prints of Charleston scenes that were widely circulated and brought national recognition to the area. Because of her background, she was more than sensitive to working conditions of the poor in the textile industry, and some of her watercolors reflected these social concerns.

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An accomplished American sculptor of the early twentieth century, who specialized in animal subjects, Anna Hyatt was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and took early training from Boston sculptor, Henry Hudson Kitson. In 1902, she moved to New York and studied with Hermon MacNeil at the Art Students League. From 1907-10, she traveled abroad, spending time in Paris and Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and Italy. During this time, she created an equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc that was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1910, and earned her a commission for the same subject on Riverside Drive in New York City, dedicated in 1915.

In 1923 Hyatt married New York philanthropist Archer M. Huntington. Together they became major patrons of traditional sculpture through their involvement in and support of the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Design. She continued her career actively through the 1930s, producing numerous sculptures for the buildings and courtyard around the Hispanic Society in New York, which housed other institutions of Archer Huntington¹s interest.

In 1927, the couple began to travel south during the winters for rest and a moderate climate, and in 1930, purchased a site of four historic plantations near Murrells Inlet on the South Carolina coast. There they built Brookgreen Gardens, with a winter residence called "Atalaya," a garden and nature preserve. Anna designed a butterfly shaped garden with pools and fountains around the site of the old plantation house. In addition to placing bronze statues of her own Diana of the Chase, Joan of Arc, and El Cid, the artist produced versions of many animals for the garden, similar to the examples shown here. The Huntingtons also acquired other figurative and traditional sculptures, founding Brookgreen Gardens in 1931. The property opened the following year as the first public sculpture garden in the United States.

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Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait was one of the foremost animal and sporting scene painters of nineteenth-century America. Born 5 August 1819 near Liverpool, England, Tait moved to Manchester as a youth and learned the techniques of lithography while working for an art dealer in that city. By 1838 he identified himself as an artist and had a rising reputation as a lithographer and illustrator of popular magazines. According to one biographer, he met and worked with George Catlin (1796-1872), as Catlin toured Great Britain and Europe with his "Indian Gallery." Tait wed Marian Cardwell in 1838 and immigrated to New York with his young family in September 1850. By 1852 Tait had begun a long, profitable association with the Currier & Ives publishing company. At the same time he discovered the Adirondack mountains of New York, and for the rest of his life his life and art were tied to that region. He became a skilled outdoorsman, hunter, and amateur naturalist. His hunting scenes and depictions of rural life were publicized through Currier & Ives and, through frequent publication, became staples of American pictorial representation. He became an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1854 and participated in their annual exhibitions for fifty-three years. In addition to his lithographs, Tait painted still lifes, horse and dog subjects, and landscapes. In his long career Tait produced thousands of paintings, frequently making original copies of his own work. After the death of his first wife, Tait wed Mary Jane Bartoft, niece of his first wife, in 1873. Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait died 28 April 1905 at his home in New York City. His papers, business records, and a large number of his works are part of the collections of the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York. 

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Watercolorist, textile designer, and teacher Charles Barton received formal art training in his native Hungary before immigrating to New York City. By 1931, he had established his own studio in the city and built a successful career designing for the major printed fabric manufacturers in the United States, as well as Canada, Australia, Mexico, and Europe. Barton held teaching positions at the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences, and Silvermine College of Art.

Barton exhibited at and was a member of the American Water Color Society, Hudson Valley Art Association, and Silvermine Guild Arts Center.

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Born November 28, 1932 in Atchison, Kansas, he received his BFA at the University of Kansas in 1956, and MFA at the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design in 1957. During that year, Blair received his degree, married, and moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where he accepted a position on the art faculty at Bob Jones University. During his 41 years of teaching there, Blair guided many developing artists of South Carolina with his quiet, unfailingly supportive direction. Through his and other faculty members’ work, Bob Jones University has become an integral component of fine arts in the upstate regions. 

In addition to the demands of professorship at Bob Jones, Blair also taught at the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville County School District’s Fine Arts Center, and the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1972, with fellow artists Emery Bopp and Darell Koons and businessman Richard Rupp, Blair co-founded Hampton III Gallery in Taylors, one of the first in upstate South Carolina. He is currently president of the gallery. 

Blair has remained active in regional arts councils, notably with the South Carolina Arts Commission, where he served on the Acquisitions Committee, as a Commissioner for two terms, and as Chairman from 1994 to 1996. He was awarded the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005. The highest award given by the state in the arts, this has been the crowning honor to Blair’s long and productive career.

In addition to these accomplishments, Blair has been a prolific creative artist throughout his career. His work is represented in more than 100 museums, galleries and institutions, and over 2,500 public, private, and corporate collections. In 1995, the South Carolina State Museum and Greenville County Museum of Art exhibited a major 40-year retrospective of his work. In 2001 he was the first living artist to have a one-man show at the Columbia Museum of Art. Blair has won numerous awards, and been included in many publications such as Contemporary Artists of South Carolina, along with significant colleagues such as William Halsey, Corrie McCallum, John Acorn, Jeanet S. Dreskin, Darell Koons, Emery Bopp, Chevis Clark, and Jasper Johns.

The colorful sculptures in this exhibition are distinct from his renowned landscapes and abstract paintings, rendered in bold colors of oil, gouache, and acrylic, which explore the boundaries of realistic and abstract imagery. The sculptures represent an entirely new dimension of Blair’s work: animated wooden creatures painted in a similar bright palette. Some of them are whimsical, while others allude to social commentary. Considering that the artist is color-blind, his skilled and expressive use of color is extraordinary. Using a band saw and pocket knife to create his sculptures from boards of spruce pine, Blair builds raw shapes from a simple idea or rough sketch. "One may start out as a pig and end up as a dog." According to the artist. He then applies 2-3 coats of gesso before applying color.

"My colors are not planned. I just start painting with acrylic paint thinned down with some transparent acrylic medium. I will go back over the painting until I get what I want, relying mostly on my intuition. I may stumble around until I find the right path. (I wander in the weeds a lot.) But I know what I want when I see it." The process is always subject to change, and he is known to modify the animals until they leave his studio.

Blair comes from an important generation of artists who brought modernism to South Carolina in the twentieth century. Likewise noteworthy is his tireless devotion to encouraging and supporting the arts. It is a gift to be able to create art, in all its forms, but Blair expands on his creative talents by sharing them with the community, enriching many lives.

Selected References
Campbell, Sharon. Blair Retrospective: 1952-1998. Greenville: Bob Jones University/Dwight Gustafson Fine Arts Center, 1998.
Severens, Martha R. Carl R. Blair: Forty Years. Greenville: Greenville County Museum of Art, 1995.

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A native of Lauterecken, Bavaria, Carl Christian Brenner was noted for his landscapes and genre paintings. As a youth he demonstrated sufficient artistic talent to be offered admission to the Munich Art Academy. However, instead of securing academic training he was trained by his father as a glazier. In 1853, at the age of fifteen he immigrated to the United States, landing first at New Orleans. He worked as a sign painter and glazier in that city for a few years but then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where made his home for the remainder of his life. In 1863 Brenner painted a panoramic view of Civil War scenes for the Masonic Hall of Louisville. 

In the 1870s he began to devote more of his energies to landscape painting. He exhibited landscapes in the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the Louisville Industrial Exposition of 1879. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1877 and participated in its activities until 1886. In 1884 he ventured to the Rocky Mountains in search of outdoor vistas. Brenner’s most representative works were landscapes of scenes in Louisville and its vicinity. His son, Carolus Brenner (1865-1929) was also a Louisville artist. 

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Born in Holstein, Germany, Carl L. Brandt was introduced to art at the age of seven by his father, and later studied in nearby Hamburg and in Copenhagen, Denmark. He came to New York City in 1852, where he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1853, 1860, and from 1862 to 1884. In 1864 he settled in a home and studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, although he returned to Europe from 1865 to 1869. Brandt was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1872, and the following year moved to Savannah, where he became the first director of the Telfair Academy, a position he held until his death. During this time, he helped to transform the Telfair family mansion into a cultural institution by acquiring a collection of art and antique plaster casts, while offering instruction to local artists. Brandt worked in a detailed and realistic academic style, creating portraits, historical paintings, landscapes, and genre.

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A peripatetic artist with a passionate interest in the natural world, Charles Brownell is best known for his distinctive landscapes of both American and international scenery. Often executed with a scientist’s preciseness for physical details, these works record Brownell’s extensive travels through the United States, Caribbean, and Europe. Closely associated with artists of Hudson River Valley School—especially Frederic Edwin Church—Brownell "spent the better part of his life trying to achieve a finer understanding of man’s place in nature’s grand scheme" through his art.

Born to privileged circumstances, Brownell was educated in the law and practiced for ten years in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut until a health crisis forced him to pursue a less stressful career. He studied locally in Hartford under Julius Busch and Joseph C Ropes before opening a studio. A man of letters, Brownell also published a comprehensive illustrated study of native populations titled The Indian Races of North and South America. During this time—and, indeed, throughout his life—Brownell traveled widely, making highly detailed visual accounts as he went. He created a sizeable body of work of Cuban landscapes and also recorded his impressions of his travels throughout the Caribbean. After living for a few years in New York City, where he exhibited at the National Academy of Design and Brooklyn Art Museum, Brownell moved to Bristol, Rhode Island. In 1871, he departed on a seven-year sojourn in Europe. He later toured widely in South America and made at least one trip to the American South, as evidenced by this mid-1850s view from Savannah.

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Best known for his emotionally charged portrayals of African American life in the rural South, Charles Shannon was born in Montgomery, Alabama. He attended Emory University, before spending four years at the Cleveland School of Art. In 1935, during his third year in school, Shannon returned to his native state and built a log cabin studio on his uncle’s farm in the small community of Searcy, forty miles south of Montgomery. Though his plans to settle there permanently did not materialize, the summer’s experience awakened his interest in Southern life and culture. "I began to feel," he later wrote, "what this country down here really meant to me. I worked with the Negroes in building my cabin . . . I went to their churches with them, to their dances and drank with them. My last year in Cleveland, filled with this newly realized beauty—I stayed out of school most of the year and painted Negroes and the Deep South from my imagination."

After graduating from college, Shannon traveled to Mexico to study the techniques of the Mexican muralists. In 1936, he returned to Alabama and became an American Scene realist, creating genre paintings drawn from African American life in an expressionistic style of intense colors and elongated, rhythmic forms. Shannon’s work from 1936 through 1939 brought extraordinary recognition to the young artist, including one-man shows, favorable reviews in leading art magazines and newspapers, as well as prizes and awards. In the same period, Shannon won consecutive Rosenfeld fellowships to make a study of Southern types, the first of these scholarships to be awarded to a white Southern artist for work in the South.

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