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February Issue 2006

Sumter Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, Offers Annual Oil Painters' Show and Works by Minnie DesChamps

Sumter Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, will present the exhibits, 2006 NBSC Oil Painters' Open Invitational and The World of Minnie DesChamps, from Feb. 9 through Mar. 26, 2006.

Prospectuses have been sent to over 165 oil painters from all regions of the state. The distinguished juror for the 2006 NBSC Oil Painters Open Invitational is Tom Nakashima, a notable artist in his own right, currently The William S. Morris Eminent Scholar in Art at Augusta State University in Augusta, GA, and Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University in Washington, DC. The rigorous juried process promises a strong show.

The Oil Painters Open Invitational emanates from the Sumter Gallery of Art, and then after March, travels for a year under the auspices of The State Museum in Columbia, SC. NBSC of Sumter, and the City Executive, Bobby Boykin, have been good stewards of this exhibition for twenty four years. It was an especially wonderful gesture for NBSC to increase the prize money awarded this year by $100 for each winner/honorable mention. The show is unique in that it showcases work from artists all over the state, rendered strictly in oil. The Sumter Gallery of Art is excited about this show, and we encourage all to come and experience the 2006 NBSC Oil Painters Open Invitational.

The other solo exhibition, The World of Minnie DesChamps, is a rare chance to experience the art of native Sumterite Minnie DesChamps; fisherman, hunter, farmer, and artist. DesChamps, who died nearly twenty years ago, was a folk artist firmly in the tradition of Clementine Hunter, another folk artist who documented by "marking" her observations on the hard life of farm labor, and the brief respites, dances, fishing, from that hard life.

According to Doris Leeper writing in the 1969 issue of the Sandlapper magazine, DesChamps "painted the African-American farm laborers of Shiloh and Mayesville, chopping cotton, planting seedlings or just resting in the sun. She knew these rural communities intimately and her great devotion to them pervades her work".

DesChamps' also traveled to Florida, and coastal South Carolina, and painted some wonderful "circus" pictures from the Ringling Brothers summer compound and some ocean scenes from Garden City. Leeper wrote "Her work really is much as she is-direct and unaffected. The simple, untrained style seems eminently suited to her subject matter".

Many folk art aficionados in the state are acquainted with Minnie's art, but most South Carolinians outside of Sumter are unfamiliar with her. DesChamps work has lain in storage for many years, even surviving Hurricane Hugo. Through the diligent efforts of her nephew, who felt a strong commitment to show her work to the audience it so richly deserves, this show became a reality. The Sumter Gallery of Art is honored to exhibit approximately 35 pieces of this vibrant body of work, rarely seen, but soon to be more appreciated.

Join us on Mar. 1, 2006, at 6pm, for a double-billed gallery talk on Minnie DesChamps by Paul Methany, Chief Curator of Art at the State Museum, and some of Minnie's friends and relations who will have everyone chuckling with personal vignettes of Minnie Deschamps and her great dane Precious!

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803//775-0543 or e-mail at (info@sumtergallery.com).

 

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