Carolinas creativity goes on display at Gantt Center

HARVEY GANTT CENTER

"From the Heart: The John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art" is on display at the Harvey Gantt Center until Jan. 20, 2025. The exhibit includes works from some of the Carolinas' best-known artists, including Romare Bearden of Charlotte and John Biggers of Gastonia.

Carolina-born artists such as Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, J. Eugene Grigsby, and others are on display in a new exhibition on view at the Harvey B. Gantt Center until Jan. 20, 2025.

The exhibition “From the Heart: The John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art” showcases the renowned collection acquired by John and Vivian Hewitt. John Hewitt, a professor turned medical journalist, and Vivian Hewitt, a librarian, together amassed a prestigious collection. Although deeply entrenched in the New York Black art scene, the pair were able to acquire several works by Carolina natives.

The collection includes a total of 58 two-dimensional works from 20 artists spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.

Charlotte-born Bearden, who has four pieces in the exhibition, spent his early childhood in Brooklyn, a former Black neighborhood in Second Ward. Bearden and his family moved to New York to escape Jim Crow customs and laws, his artistic practice would grow significantly during this time and he would become a major player in the Harlem Renaissance and other historical art movements.

Most known for his oil and collage work, one of Bearden’s pieces included in the show is titled “Homage to Mary Lou” (1984) honoring the late Mary Lou Williams, an American jazz pianist. Williams was a southerner as well– born in Atlanta and later died in her Durham home.

Alston was born in Charlotte and related to Bearden through his mother’s second marriage. He attended Columbia University and would become an influential painter during the Harlem Renaissance. Alston was the first African American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration. The WPA supervised the murals created at Harlem Hospital.

“From the Heart” includes “Woman Washing Clothes” (ca. 1970) by Alston, which depicts a woman bent over an old, black washing pot. The piece was made during the Civil Rights Movement and influences of that era are evident in the theme. Alston was also heavily influenced by Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera, who he frequently visited during his artistic career.

Grigsby, a multimedia artist and educator born in Greensboro but raised in Charlotte, is best known for his printmaking and abstract expressionist painting. Grigsby has seven pieces in the exhibition that encompass his abstract style

Gastonia-born John Biggers and South Carolina native Jonathan Green are also featured in the exhibition.

Comments