Alabama Creates
Alabama Creates
200 Years of Art and Artists
Alabama artists have been an integral part of the story of the state, reflecting a wide-ranging and multihued sense of place through images of the land and its people. Quilts, pottery, visionary paintings, sculpture, photography, folk art, and abstract art have all contributed to diverse visions of Alabama’s culture and environment. The works of art included in this volume have all emerged from a distinctive milieu that has nourished the creation of powerful visual expressions, statements that are both universal and indigenous.
Published to coincide with the state’s bicentennial, Alabama Creates: 200 Years of Art and Artists features ninety-four of Alabama’s most accomplished, noteworthy, and influential practitioners of the fine arts from 1819 to the present. The book highlights a broad spectrum of artists who worked in the state, from its early days to its current and contemporary scene, exhibiting the full scope and breadth of Alabama art.
This retrospective volume features biographical sketches and representative examples of each artist’s most masterful works. Alabamians like Gay Burke, William Christenberry, Roger Brown, Thornton Dial, Frank Fleming, the Gee’s Bend Quilters, Lonnie Holley, Dale Kennington, Charlie Lucas, Kerry James Marshall, David Parrish, and Bill Traylor are compared and considered with other nationally significant artists.
Alabama Creates is divided into four historical periods, each spanning roughly fifty years and introduced by editor Elliot A. Knight. Knight contextualizes each era with information about the development of Alabama art museums and institutions and the evolution of college and university art departments. The book also contains an overview of the state’s artistic heritage by Gail C. Andrews, director emerita of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Alabama Creates conveys in a sweeping and captivating way the depth of talent, the range of creativity, and the lasting contributions these artists have made to Alabama’s extraordinarily rich visual and artistic heritage.
Alabama artists have helped contextualize the state as a place that is embracing its past while visualizing its future. Artists such as the internationally hailed quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, public artist Rick Lowe, painters Jack Whitten and Thornton Dial, and photographer Carolyn Sherer have portrayed a richer understanding of Alabama that is appreciated not only by those of us who live here but also by the nation in general. Alabama would not have the exposure or the expanded worldview that are so apparent without the work of the visual artists who have helped us reveal the complexity, diversity, and multifaceted nature of our populations and our state. Alabama artists help us define who we are and what home is.’
—from the introduction by Gail C. Andrews
Al Head is executive director emeritus of the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Gail C. Andrews is director emerita of the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Acknowledgments
Preface by Al Head
Introduction by Gail C. Andrews
Part I. Prehistory to 1868
Chapter 1. William Frye
Chapter 2. John Lehman
Chapter 3. Nicola Marschall
Chapter 4. S. Phillip Romer
Chapter 5. William Carroll Saunders
Chapter 6. Edward Troye
Part II. 1869–1918
Chapter 7. Lucille Sinclair Douglass
Chapter 8. Anne Goldthwaite
Chapter 9. Louise Lyons Heustis
Chapter 10. Mary Morgan Keipp
Chapter 11. Giuseppe Moretti
Chapter 12. Clara Weaver Parrish
Chapter 13. Lois Slosson Sundberg
Chapter 14. Maria Howard Weeden
Part III. 1919–1968
Chapter 15. Frank Hartley Anderson
Chapter 16. Frank Woodberry Applebee
Chapter 17. Virginia Barnes
Chapter 18. Richard Blauvelt Coe
Chapter 19. Frank Engle
Chapter 20. Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Chapter 21. John Kelly Fitzpatrick
Chapter 22. Crawford Gillis
Chapter 23. Isaac Scott Hathaway
Chapter 24. Draffus Lamar Hightower
Chapter 25. Carrie Hill
Chapter 26. John Lapsley
Chapter 27. John Roderick Dempster MacKenzie
Chapter 28. James “Spider” Martin
Chapter 29. Geneva Mercer
Chapter 30. Carlos Alpha “Shiney” Moon
Chapter 31. Charles Moore
Chapter 32. Ann Weaver Norton
Chapter 33. Prentice Herman Polk
Chapter 34. Alvin Conrad Sella
Chapter 35. Charles Shannon
Chapter 36. William Spratling
Chapter 37. Arthur Stewart
Chapter 38. Maltby Sykes
Chapter 39. Bill Traylor
Chapter 40. John Augustus Walker
Chapter 41. Kathryn Tucker Windham
Chapter 42. Richard Zoellner
Part IV. 1969–2019
Chapter 43. Butch Anthony
Chapter 44. Arthur L. Bacon
Chapter 45. Pinky/MM Bass
Chapter 46. Mozell Benson
Chapter 47. Cal Breed
Chapter 48. Jerry Brown
Chapter 49. Roger Brown
Chapter 50. Gay Burke
Chapter 51. Richmond Burton
Chapter 52. Gary Chapman
Chapter 53. William Andrew Christenberry Jr.
Chapter 54. Chip Cooper
Chapter 55. Thornton Dial
Chapter 56. Casey Downing Jr.
Chapter 57. Nora Ezell
Chapter 58. Howard Finster
Chapter 59. Frank Fleming
Chapter 60. Robert Lawrence “Larry” Godwin
Chapter 61. Darius Hill
Chapter 62. Lonnie Holley
Chapter 63. Dale Kennington
Chapter 64. Bettye Kimbrell
Chapter 65. Janice Kluge
Chapter 66. Simmie Knox
Chapter 67. Cam Langley
Chapter 68. Dale Lewis
Chapter 69. Rick Lowe
Chapter 70. Charlie Lucas
Chapter 71. Kerry James Marshall
Chapter 72. Dean Mosher
Chapter 73. Nall
Chapter 74. James Emmette Neel
Chapter 75. David Parrish
Chapter 76. Stephen Rolfe Powell
Chapter 77. Noah Purifoy
Chapter 78. Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend
Chapter 79. Sonja Rieger
Chapter 80. Guadalupe Lanning Robinson
Chapter 81. Carolyn Sherer
Chapter 82. Jerry Siegel
Chapter 83. Charles Smith
Chapter 84. Melissa Springer
Chapter 85. Scott Stephens
Chapter 86. Jimmy Lee Sudduth
Chapter 87. Nina Gail Thrower
Chapter 88. Mose Tolliver
Chapter 89. Craig R. Wedderspoon
Chapter 90. Yvonne Wells
Chapter 91. Myrtice West
Chapter 92. Jack Whitten
Chapter 93. Hugh O. Williams
Chapter 94. Evan Wilson
Contributing Authors
Where to see Visual Art in Alabama
Resources to Learn More about Alabama Visual Arts and Artists
Books and Exhibition Catalogues
Shot in Alabama
A History of Photography, 1839–1941, and a List of Photographers
By Frances Osborn Robb; Preface by Frances Osborn Robb
