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

That Time Andy Warhol Came to Birmingham

Andy Warhol was one of the best known and most controversial artists of the 20th century. His influence on both the art world and popular culture has been extensive; we can thank him for the Velvet Underground if nothing else. 

In 1979 Warhol was commissioned to paint four portraits of city residents Charles Ireland and his wife Caroline. He worked from Polaroids taken some months earlier. In March of that year Warhol came to the Birmingham Museum of Art for the presentation of Charles Ireland's portrait seen below.

That event took place on March 9. The BMA's web site has this further note about the visit: 

The artist was treated to a barbecue lunch during his interview for The Birmingham News. Eating his sandwich, Warhol quietly remarked, “It’s very good…No, we can’t get good barbecue in New York.”

Some further comments are below.

Source: BhamWiki.com 

Ireland joined the family business, the Birmingham Slag Company, in 1939. By 1951 he was president and steered the firm's merger with a New Jersey company to form Vulcan Materials. Ireland was named chairman of the board and remained in that position until his retirement in 1983. He died in 1987 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. 

Warhol and the portrait at the BMA on 9 March 1979

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Warhol at the BMA 9 March 1979

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Warhol with Caroline and Charles Ireland 9 March 1979

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

A Quick Visit to the Helena Museum

On a recent Saturday morning I finally made a long-planned visit to the museum in Helena's Old Town section just up the hill from Buck Creek. The museum was crowded with people who had come to reminisce and learn about the quarter-mile Helena Drag Strip that operated in the 1950's and 1960's. An exhibit about the strip opened at the museum in February 2016.   

The facility is formally known as the Kenneth R. Penhale City of Helena Museum.  Penhale is a Helena native and has served as President of the Shelby County Historical Society. He is the co-author of a 1998 pictorial book on the city's history. 

You can see a number of other photos on their Facebook page, although that seems to have been dormant since 2015. In addition to the drag strip exhibit, the museum has lots of photos and memorabilia related to WWII veterans from the area and  local mining and other businesses, and more.

The museum, which is open Saturdays and by appointment, opened in 2011. 

A Quick Visit to Mobile, Alabama (2)

Back in July we visited Mobile for a family gathering. We stayed at the Battle House Hotel and ventured up and down Dauphin Street when we had a chance and despite the heat. I covered some of what we saw in an earlier post. Here are some more of the sites along one of the city's iconic streets.

Cathedral Square is a city park across the street from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which was built between 1850 and 1884. The Square was once a Catholic Cemetery but most graves were moved in 1819.

Located across another street from Cathedral Square is the Bishop Portier House. Mobile's first Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Portier lived here from 1834 until 1859.

 

These two institutions are across the street from Cathedral Square. I found the juxtaposition interesting. More information can be found at the Mobile Arts Council web site and a 2009 article about the Police Museum. 

 

 

We could not resist getting something salty and something sweet from this business in operation since 1947.

 

 

I'm always ready to visit local bookstores, and several of us made it to Bienville Books just across from the Square on Dauphin Street. Book lovers can spend some serious browsing time in this two-story haven. I especially enjoyed the local history section.

 

 

 

 

 

We were all excited to come across this classic American icon from the film A Christmas Story in the barber shop across the street from the Battle House.

 

 

More than 25 sites now make up the Alabama Oyster Trail. Painted by local artists, the statues are meant to highlight restoration efforts in Mobile Bay.  

 

 

Beautiful Bienville Square is near the hotel. The entire block is now the park, but it started out as a plot of land deeded by the U.S. government to the city if used as a park. Over the years the city purchased the remaining land in the block and owned it all by 1849. At one time the Spanish Hospital stood in this block. The Square is named for the city's founder.

Even the squirrels seemed to be feeling the heat that day

 

This building near the hotel is another example of the wonderful architecture being restored in that part of Mobile.

 

 

 

Opened in January 1927, the Saenger Theatre was the 61st facility in a chain throughout the South started by two brothers in New Orleans. The theater was built to resemble opera houses in Europe. Like so many theaters built in that era, the Saenger had many uses over the years and faced imminent destruction in 1970. Luckily the Saenger survived to entertain another day.