The Gibbes Museum of Art Announces April Happenings

The Gibbes Museum of Art has many happenings coming this April, and you can see a selection of those events below.

All descriptions were provided by the Gibbes.

Programming: 

Gallery Tour with Artist Adam Eddy, April 3

Currently featured in the Gibbes’ Art Sales Gallery, Adam Eddy, will give a guided tour of his paintings on view from 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Eddy participated in the Gibbes Visiting Artist program from Jan. 10, 2019, through May 10, 2019. He is an interdisciplinary artist based in Charleston, SC, whose work ranges from painting and sculpture to computer graphics and immersive technology. The works in this exhibition represent an exploration of the porous boundary between bodies and terrain, from the inner self to the outer world. He distorts, stretches and contradicts semantic ideas like animacy and in-animacy to create a transient experience and elicit emotion through the visual arts. Registration is required. For images, visit https://bit.ly/2O01r4h.

Price: Free

Depth of Field: Alfred Stieglitz: Artist and Artworld Impresario, April 7

Inspired by the special exhibition In Body and Soul: The Figure in Modernist Photography this virtual lecture with Dr. Bradford R. Collins will focus on the legacy of trailblazing photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Dr. Collins will provide an overview of the photographic art of Stieglitz and discuss the critical roles he played in the fight to recognize photography as art. This event is a part of a three-part lecture series where scholars from across the country will put contributions of the lensmen and lenswomen who defined photography in the 20th century into bold, new contexts. The event will take place on Zoom and registrants will receive the link one day before the event.

Price: $10 members | $15 non-members | $5 for students with ID

Chamber Music in the Garden, April 9

The Charleston Symphony Orchestra will return to the Gibbes with a special performance in the Lenhardt Garden featuring their brass quintet. The event will feature a variety of musical selections from 16^th-century compositions to contemporary works.

Price: $30 members | $40 non-members

Pop-up Delights with Visiting Artist Jen Swearington, April 10

Jen Swearington, an Artist-in-Residence at the Gibbes through April 4, will lead this pop-up workshop. Jen has traveled to more than a dozen countries for several month-long international artist residencies in Bulgaria, Mexico, Finland, and Greece. On these adventures, she filled sketchbooks with drawings and created “Homeward,” her ongoing series of carousel pop-up books and “Shadow House” architectural papercut sculptures. She will instruct participants to create a range of amazing structures of their own in this in-person session.

Price: $85 members | $100 non-members

Birding at Black River Cypress, April 13

Inspired by the upcoming special exhibitions, Lasting Impressions and Japonisme in Charleston, this event will teach guests about birds and botanical resources that inhabit the Lowcountry. Led by former director of the Coastal Conservation League, Dana Beach and author of “Rice and Ducks,” Virginia Beach, this session will walk participants through Black River Cypress’s flat trail. Suggested supplies include comfortable, closed-toed shoes, binoculars and a water bottle – lunch will be included. In the case of bad weather, the event will be moved to April 16.

Price: $50 members | $75 non-members

Virtual Storytime at the Gibbes, April 15

Visitors are invited to a virtual storytime in collaboration with the Charleston County Public Library. Families will enjoy stories and songs inspired by temporary exhibitions and works in the permanent collection. The event will air on Facebook @theGibbesMuseum.

Price: Free

Kayaking at Black River Cypress, April 17

Inspired by the sweeping landscapes of the upcoming special exhibitions, Lasting Impressions and Japonisme in Charleston, the Gibbes invites visitors to explore Black River Cypress Preserve in Georgetown County. Designed for all levels, this event is an introduction to kayaking in the Lowcountry and all equipment will be provided. In the case of bad weather, the event will be moved to April 24.

Price: $125 members | $150 non-members

Gibbes Film in Focus: Daughters of the Dust, April 22

Gibbes Film in Focus is a three-part pilot film series that will expand the Museum’s diverse array of educational programming to include filmmaking, offering a safe place to watch great movies in the heart of historic downtown Charleston. To use film as an entry point for engaging people in the power of art and storytelling, the series will also promote culturally significant works by women filmmakers and filmmakers of color. “Daughters of the Dust” is a film directed by Julie Dash that sheds light on a multi-generational family in the Gullah community’s struggle to maintain their cultural heritage. To watch the trailer, visit https://bit.ly/2QBaIkD.

Price: $10 adults | $5 students/faculty

Virtual Lecture with Sebastian Izzard, Ph.D., April 30

Contributing author to the Lasting Impressions catalogue, Sebastian Izzard, Ph.D., is a world-renowned specialist in Japanese fine art. He will lead this virtual lecture that discusses the upcoming special exhibitions at the Gibbes, Lasting Impressions and Japonisme in Charleston.

Price: $15 members | $20 non-members | $10 students/faculty

Upcoming Special Exhibitions:

Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection, April 30 – October 4, 2021

This exhibition will present 60 exceptional and rare prints amassed by Charleston collector Motte Alston Read and his sister, Mary Read Hume Simms of New Orleans, during the first decades of the 20th century. The Read-Simms Collection reflects the full range of popular print subjects by master Ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period, from famous Kabuki theater actors portrayed by Suzuki Harunobu and Tōshūsai Sharaku in the 18th century to vibrant landscapes by Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai in the 19th century. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring entries by Japanese fine art specialist, Sebastian Izzard Ph.D., and an in-depth essay on the collectors. For images, visit https://bit.ly/3b9b6Ps.

Japonisme in Charleston: Alice Smith and Her Circle, April 30 – October 4, 2021

Early 20th century Charleston artist Alice Ravenel Huger Smith was one of many American artists to react to the western dissemination of Japanese prints. In a companion exhibition to Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection the wave of enthusiasm for the Japanese aesthetic in Charleston will be explored through the works of Smith and other artists that embraced the tenets and techniques of Japanese art. For images, visit https://bit.ly/2Ll7b7r.

Ongoing Special Exhibitions:

Manning Williams: Reinventing Narrative Painting, through April 18

Reinventing Narrative Painting is the first major retrospective of Manning Williams’s work since his death in 2012.  The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Evening Post Publishing and will travel to the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA. Williams’s paintings are rooted in the history, traditions, and terrain of the South Carolina Lowcountry. A Charleston native and lifelong resident, Williams earned degrees from the College of Charleston and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His highly personal approach to realist painting emphasized storytelling and was fueled by an interest in portraying subjects that he found on the periphery of the city and along the barrier islands. Western subjects also commanded Williams’s attention, and during the later years of his career, his concern with narrative was expressed in a more abstract style. Reinventing Narrative Painting features 30 paintings from Williams’s prolific career that spanned more than 40 years. For images, visit https://bit.ly/3pDi2cC.

In Body and Soul: The Figure in Modernist Photography, through April 18

Drawn from the Robert Marks Collection, this exhibition features 30 photographs by renowned 20th-century photographers. From Alfred Stieglitz’s intimate composite portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe to Lewis Hine’s depictions of American laborers, modernist-era photographers radically shifted how the human body was captured on film and for what purpose. Employing a variety of techniques from cropping and zooming, to distortion and framing, modernist photographers explored the human figure for social, performative, voyeuristic and documentary purposes. Highlights include the work of Stieglitz, Hine, Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, George Platt Lynes and László Moholy-Nagy. For images, visit https://bit.ly/390z4tt.

Charleston Collects: Devotion and Fantasy, Witchcraft and the World’s End, through June 27, 2021

This exhibition is a selection of art curated by Lawrence Goedde, Ph.D., professor of art history at the University of Virginia. The collection, which is comprised of objects created in the Low Countries and Germany between 1440 and 1590, showcases a world of contradictions and unease—whether the subject is a troubled Virgin Mary contemplating her young son, or a menacing group of malevolent figures inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, or Albrecht Dürer’s famous scenes from Revelations. For images, visit https://bit.ly/3oeHGmM.

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