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Charleston Business

Gibbes Expands Permanent Collection

Jan 24, 2018 05:20PM ● By Emily Stevenson
The Gibbes Museum of Art is adding four new items to its permanent art collection, which spans four centuries and provides a vivid introduction to visual culture in America and the American South from the colonial era to the present.

“Requiem for Mother Emanuel #3” (2016), batik, by Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Gifted to the Gibbes by John and Kay Bachmann, Requiem for Mother Emanuel #3 was created by South Carolina artist Dr. Leo Twiggs in response to the Emanuel AME Church tragedy on June 17, 2015. Twiggs’ works often deal with the South’s difficult racial history, and he is known for using batik, an ancient wax-resist method of dyeing textiles.

Never Again, ca. 2007, by Mary Jackson (American, b. 1945)
NeverAgain
is a major work by world-famous sweetgrass weaver Mary Jackson and is considered a masterpiece of traditional Gullah basketry. Donated to the Museum by the Braithwaite Family of Atlanta, the basket is the largest of its kind, measuring 42-inches in diameter. In 1984, the Gibbes organized the first-ever museum exhibition of Jackson’s and purchased its first basket by the artist, Cobra with Handle, that same year. 

“And Still I Love” (2017), Crayon, acrylic, and oil on watercolor paper, by Charles Williams (American, b. 1984): Conceived last year during Charles Williams’ two-week visiting artist residency at the Gibbes, And Still I Love is a part of Williams’ Child’s Play series, which combines crayon, acrylic and oil on watercolor paper to convey a contemporary response to sociopolitical issues of the past and present.

“Study for The Wind-Up” (ca. 1935-38), an oil on canvas by Andrée Ruellan (American, 1905-2006)
Created by American Scene painter Andree Ruellan in the 1930s, this oil painting was only recently identified as a Charleston scene, most likely inspired by Ruellan’s trip to the Holy City in 1936.