December 9, 2017 — July 8, 2018
The Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries for Changing Exhibitions
George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1877-78. oil on canvas. Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.15.
Robert Brammer (c. 1811-1853), Mississippi Panorama, circa 1842-1853. oil on canvas. 29 x 36 inches. Private Collection
George Catlin (1796-1872), Mó-sho-la-túb-bee, He Who Puts Out and Kills, Chief of the Tribe, 1834. oil on canvas. Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.294.
Louis Joseph Bahin (1813-1857), Portrait of George Matthews Marshall, ca. 1853. oil on canvas. Collection of Lansdowne Plantation, Natchez, MS.
Louis Joseph Bahin (1813-1857), Natchez Under the Hill, 1852. oil on canvas. Collection of the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
John Steuart Curry (1897-1946), Hoover and the Flood, 1940. oil on panel. Collection of Morris Museum of Art.
George Ohr (1857-1918), Petticoat Vase, ca. 1898. glazed ceramic. Collection of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art. Gift of David Whitney in honor of Frank and Berta Gehry, 2003.012.001.
Bob Thompson (1937-1966), Homage to Nina Simone, 1965. oil on canvas. Minneapolis Institute of Art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund, 89.83 © Estate of Bob Thompson, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY.
Noah Saterstrom (b. 1974), Road to Shubuta, 2016. oil on canvas. © Courtesy of the artist.
Randy Hayes (b. 1944), House on Mound (Delta), 2015. oil and photograph on canvas. Collection of Eason and Ellen Leake. © Courtesy of the artist.
Celebrate Mississippi's bicentennial on the banks of art history.
THE SIXTEENTH PRESENTATION IN THE ANNIE LAURIE SWAIM HEARIN MEMORIAL EXHIBITION SERIES
The centerpiece of the Museum’s bicentennial initiatives, Picturing Mississippi commemorates and celebrates the 200th anniversary of statehood for Mississippi, admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state. Its aesthetic goal is to assemble original artworks in various media of the highest quality to illuminate the perception and depiction of Mississippi over more than two centuries. With more than 175 works by more than 100 different artists, the exhibition is unprecedented in the history of Mississippi. A great many of these works will be lent by prestigious national institutions such as the Harvard University Art Museums; the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Featured will be individual masterpieces by artists seldom exhibited in the state, including George Caleb Bingham, Robert Indiana, James Audubon, Louis Bahin, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry – as well as a plethora of works by native Mississippians such as James Tooley, Jr., Eudora Welty, William Dunlap, and Randy Hayes.
The exhibition will proceed chronologically and thematically, giving visitors the opportunity to perceive the evolving depiction of Mississippi – first by foreign-born artists as a place of immense beauty and prosperity, and later as a land laid waste by civil war, farmed by sharecroppers, held in check by segregation, and changed forever by the struggle for civil rights. Eventually, new voices rose to express the extraordinary artistic creativity of Mississippians of all races.
Art made about Mississippi’s people, places, and events offers a powerful lens through which to understand the state’s history; this visual narrative complements the artifacts and stories in the new Museum of Mississippi History. A significant component of the bicentennial exhibition will also feature art made in response to the events, victims, and heroes of the civil rights movement in the South, dovetailing with exhibitions on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The opening of Picturing Mississippi coincides with the opening of the 2 Mississippi Museums as the result of a partnership with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Cost: $12 adults, $10 seniors, $6 students. FREE children 5 and under, FREE Museum members
