Experience how artists shaped and were shaped by their surroundings, from the 1830s to the 2000s, through these photographs, sketches, diaries, and correspondences from the US South. Part 1 of A Road Trip through the Archives of American Art.
LessMarried artists Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009) wrapped, draped, and fenced massive features of the environment. In 1983, they surrounded 11 islands in Biscayne Bay, in greater Miami, with hot pink fabric. Though it took more than two years to plan, the installation was on view for just two weeks. Working with teams of Miami government officials, scientists, lawyers, and engineers to secure several permits, they removed almost 40 tons of garbage from the man-made islands.
Howard Finster (1916–2001) was a folk art phenom. In the 1960s, he began constructing Paradise Garden, a two-acre spiritual environment at his home in Pennville, Georgia. His plan was to display all the inventions of mankind and to spread the Word. Embedded in the garden’s cement walls, walkways, and playhouses are Bible verses, accumulated bicycle parts, TV tubes, mirror glass, Coca-Cola bottles, junk jewelry, plastic toys, a mound of cement snakes, and his son’s tonsils “put up in alcohol.”
Blanche Lazzell (1878–1956) kept a diary at the SC Coeducational Institute boarding school. She detailed day-to-day life—art classes, friends, and the weather. On the train home to WV she looked out the window and observed: “It was a lonely spring evening, I watched the sun go down behind the tall green pines. The moon came up and greeted the lonely little girl. I watched the old moon and it seemed to speak and cheer me on my lonely journey.” She became a multi-talented printmaker and designer.
The Penland Mountain School of Crafts is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. The historic school’s serene and secluded location fosters a strong sense of community. Penland student Peter Ray took this photograph of an Easter parade, an annual occasion that brought together students and instructors to make creative costumes and props.
At the onset of US military engagement in World War II, Leslie Cheek (1908–1992) resigned from his position as director of the Baltimore Museum of Art to join the U.S. Army. As chief of the Camouflage Section of the Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Major Cheek oversaw many aspects of camouflage education. Students were tasked with solving a specific problem, as in this case study. A student identified the ways in which a small parts plant in Virginia might be obscured as an amusement park.
Alma Thomas (1891–1978) developed her signature style of exuberant, rainbow-hued abstractions from the sunny kitchen of her row house off Logan Circle. She was the first student to earn a degree in Fine Arts from Howard University. After graduating, she took a job at Shaw Jr. High, mentoring generations of students until she retired in 1960 to devote more energy to painting. She was in her 70s when her artworks began to receive national acclaim. Today her home studio is an Historic Landmark.
Sculptor and racecar driver Salvatore Scarpitta (1919–2007) grew up immersed in American car culture. Here Scarpitta zooms by in a mini sprint car he had built. Homespun dirt tracks like Hagerstown Raceway fueled Scarpitta’s interest in crafting and driving. “Racing cars were my way of showing that I, too, knew something of America.” He fluidly shifted gears between the racing and art worlds. Art dealer Leo Castelli sponsored Scarpitta’s sprint car team and exhibited the cars as works of art
Cuban-born painter Emilio Sanchez (1921–1999) traveled the world. Architectural features like doorways, windows, and chimneys were among his itinerant interests. In the late 1940s, he visited New Castle, Delaware. This sketch details a cupola of the “Old Arsenal,” a 19th-century armory. When the building was renovated in 1936 as part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, the cupola was redesigned to better reflect the colonial character of the small town on the Delaware River.
Palmer Hayden (1890–1973) compiled dozens of sketchbooks during his celebrated career as a painter of African American subjects. They document the years Hayden lived in France and also his travels in the United States. While on a road trip in 1938, Hayden stopped to sketch the cityscape of Weirton, a town in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. This drawing shows smoke billowing from steel mills. At the time, Weirton was a leading producer of steel in the United States.
Artist Henry Mosler (1841–1930) kept a diary of his experience in KY as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly and an aide-de-camp in the Ninth Indiana Volunteer Regiment. On Oct. 8, 1862, he witnessed the Battle of Perryville. After the bloody battle ended, he wrote of a field hospital, “About 200 wounded were lying suffering some crying Oh! mother Oh! Doctor Oh give me some water. enough to make any one feel the terror of this war.” His illustration of the battle was published in Harper’s Weekly.