Work by Carolyn Shores Wright at the Fayette Art Museum

Last summer my brother Richard and I made a day trip to Fayette. I've written about the town in northeast Alabama here. Our main purpose was a visit to the Fayette Art Museum. We had previously corresponded with Anne Perry, the director, who had expressed interest in having some of mom's artwork in the museum. She kindly gave us a tour, and I wrote specifically about the museum here. Richard and I were impressed with the collection of some 5000 pieces which includes works by well-known Alabama artists such as Lois Wilson, Jimmy Lee Sudduth and many others. That collection fills display areas on two floors, with much more in storage. 

Since that visit the family has donated a number of mostly watercolor originals to the museum. On April 26 a reception was held at the museum to announce the opening of a gallery devoted to mom's art. Dianne and I were able to attend and met the city's mayor and his wife and current and former museum board members. We enjoyed refreshments, and the drive to the museum and back to Pelham took us through some wonderful undeveloped countryside in northeast Alabama.

We know mom would be very pleased to have her work in this museum in the company of its wide range of artists. More comments are  below. 

As I described in the previous piece about the museum, the Fayette Civic Center and Art Museum are located in a former elementary school that opened in 1930. The facility is used for many different events from concerts to wedding receptions, all in the midst of art displays everywhere.

This creation guarding the front entrance is one of several frogs around town created by local artists. in this case Deborah Hill in 2021. 

We were greeted by a nice display featuring one of mom's floral paintings in oil. She worked in that medium for some years in the 1970s, but she was so prolific she wanted something that dried faster. She tried acrylics, but soon took up watercolor for good. 

One of her favorite subjects was birds, and she painted many. On the left is what she called an enhanced mat, one on which she painted something decorative on the mat.

On the left is "On the Green" one of her "Bird Life" series of humorous bird paintings. On the right is one of her many hummingbird paintings. 

In the 1990s the Franklin Mint issued two series of six plates each featuring mom's bird and bird house paintings. Here are four; below are two of the original paintings.

AMIA Studios specialized in stained glass items, from larger wall hangings such as the one below to smaller pieces. The original painting is above. The company celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, but no longer seems to be in business. AMIA also issued suncatchers, candle holders and similar items featuring mom's work. 

Jack Black was a newspaperman in Fayette and was instrumental along with the city council in founding the museum in 1969. He served as director for 15 years. 

Some of mom's work was featured in the museum's Christmas festival in December. Two of her many holiday paintings hang on the left.

The oil painting of two owls is the largest work of mom's we've ever seen. Through a fortuitous series of events, we purchased the painting in September 2023 from an estate sale in Huntsville. The work had been purchased from mom at an art show in the 1970s and hung in a home all those years just a few miles from mom and dad's house. 

Work by Carolyn Shores Wright can be purchased as prints, greeting cards and on many other products at Fine Art America. 

A Quick Visit to Fayette

Last August I posted an item about the visit my brother and I made to the Fayette Art Museum the month before. In this post I wanted to offer photos and information about the city of Fayette itself.

The town is located in northwest Alabama and is the seat of Fayette County. That county was created by the legislature on December 20, 1824, from parts of Marion and Tuscaloosa counties. The town of Fayette predates the county, having been incorporated in January 1821. The town had several different names until a November 1898 vote settled on the same name as the county. 

The city and county once depended largely on agriculture, but now various types of manufacturing employ over a third of workers. The population of Fayette in 2020 was 4329, and of the county 16, 321. One of the oldest businesses in Fayette is the Golden Eagle Syrup Manufacturing Company founded in 1928. 

Fayette's business district burned on March 24, 1911; structures destroyed included the county's sixth courthouse, which had cost $40,000 to construct. A new courthouse, costing $59.000, opened the following year. A roof and interior renovation in 1999 cost more than $2 million, a million of which was donated by a local philanthropist. Photographs of the sixth courthouse and the seventh one soon after construction can be seen in the Hughes book cited below.

More comments accompany some of my photographs. 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Hughes, Delos. Historic Alabama Courthouses: A Century of their Images and Stories. NewSouth Books, 2017, pp 64-65

National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Alabama, eds. Early Courthouses of Alabama Prior to 1860. 1966, pp 30-31

Rumore, Samuel A. Jr. Building Alabama's Courthouses: Fayette County Revisited. The Alabama Lawyer 2000 March; 61(2): 104-105

We enjoyed a great lunch at Fannie's, surrounded by some local art. This eatery is in the same block as the courthouse. 

The courthouse lawn has a Civil War statue and the Fayette County Veterans Memorial 1990 that lists the county's casualties in World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam.

The Fayette Art Museum is located in this building, along with the Civic Center and the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame.

Art in the community and the schools is supported by the Sipsey Art Alliance formed in 2014.

Frogs can be spotted around town.

The Fayette Depot was originally constructed by Southern Railway in 1887; this similar structure of brick replaced the wooden one in 1913. Unfortunately, the museum was closed when we visited Fayette. 

A Visit to the Fayette Art Museum

Alabama has many lesser known treasures, and on a recent weekend my brother Richard and I visited one of them--the Fayette Art Museum. 

The museum is located in the town and county of Fayette in northeast Alabama. Fayette is the county seat, so there is an impressive old courthouse to be seen. More about that and the town in another post.

A former school building is the site of the museum. The Fayette Grammar School opened in 1930, but by the early 1970s was abandoned and in disrepair. An art museum had opened in city hall in 1969, and newspaperman Jack Black was named director. An effort began to restore the school and in 1982 the Fayette Art Museum and Civic Center opened. Black remained director until his death in 2004. The current director is Anne Perry-Uhlman. The museum houses over 4000 works of art. Also located there is the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame.

So how did all that art end up in the small town of Fayette? The core of the collection originated with Lois Wilson, who in 1969 donated some 2600 works of art by her and other artists she had collected. Wilson [not the film actress who grew up in Birmingham] was a Fayette native who died in Yonkers, New York in relative poverty in 1981. Over a sixty year period she created 3000 works herself. 

The restored school exhibits and stores her surviving collection and the numerous pieces by others added in recent years. The museum currently houses works by a number of additional Alabama artists such as Jimmy Lee Sudduth [1910-2007], Sybil Gibson, Jessi LaVon, Doug Odom, Wanda Teel, and Mose Tolliver [1920-2006]. Also from Fayette County are the Rev. Benjamin Perkins [Bankston] and Fred Webster [Berry]. One artist included who is not from the state is impressionist Sam Barber.

Sudduth is an internationally known folk artist born near Fayette. Tolliver is equally well-known; he was born near Montgomery. The Rev. Benjamin F. Perkins [1904-1993] a Vernon, Alabama native, is another folk artist represented in the museum. Fred Webster [1911-1998] was a wood carver. Sybil Gibson [1908-1995, Dora], Jessi Lavon [Forkland], Doug Odom [Headland], and Wanda Teal [Montgomery] are additional folk artists. 

In 1999 National Geographic chose the museum as a regional attraction. Since 1970 the annual Fayette Arts Festival has been sponsored by the museum. The museum is well worth a visit; it may house more folk and other art by Alabama artists than any other place in the world. 

Further Reading

Kathy Kemp, A town's tiny treasure. Jack Black put Fayette on art map. Birmingham Post-Herald 9 August 1993, p B1,, B4

Harold Kennedy, If it was discarded, Lois Wilson would paint on it. Birmingham News 7 February 1982, p B1. 

Lots of art is to be seen as soon as you enter the museum.

While Richard and I visited, set up was underway for a wedding to be held the next day. The facility is also an event center. Art adorns the walls of meeting rooms [former classrooms] and the auditorium.

One of the downstairs galleries is devoted to Jimmy Lee Sudduth. 

The museum displays many of Wilson's large and small works. 

Lois Wilson

An entire gallery is devoted to art by the Rev. Benjamin Perkins.

Here's a reminder that you are in a former school building.

Even the director's office serves as a gallery.

Wilson served as a private in the Army Air Force during World War II. She enlisted in Yonkers on August 16, 1944, in the Women's Army Corps according to that record. 

Source: Ancestry.com

Wilson is buried in the Fayette City Cemetery.

Source: Find-A-Grave