KNOXVILLE: Tradition Redefined

Joseph Delaney, Woman in Striped Dress, 1964, oil on board. Image via knoxart.org.

The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art
March 22 – June 16, 2013

KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART
1050 World’s Fair Park
Knoxville, TN

Larry and Brenda Thompson have amassed a remarkable collection of art by African Americans from around the nation. The strength of the Thompson’s collecting process lies in their considered attention to artists who have typically not been recognized in the traditional narratives of African American art.

In addition to acknowledged “masters,” the Thompsons have collected works by artists who have been labeled “emerging,” “unknown,” “outsider,” “eccentric,” “vernacular,” “regional” and more. The result is a collection that redefines the landscape of American art, offering a more in-depth, inclusive understanding of African American artists and their aesthetic and social concerns. The Thompsons have not only identified and supported artists inside and outside of the canon, but they have also cultivated meaningful relationships with a variety of artists and their families that have lasted decades.

Represented in this diverse selection of artists are Beauford and Joseph Delaney, two of Knoxville’s most important artists. Born to a minister-father, the Delaney brothers learned to draw on Sunday school cards at church and were given art lesson by distinguished local artist Lloyd Branson. The brothers left Knoxville in the mid 1920s to pursue their art careers in larger arenas, but followed very different artistic paths. After studying in Boston, Beauford (1901-1979) chose New York and later Paris as the ideal settings for his experiments with expressive abstraction. Joseph (19903-1986) headed for Chicago before settling in New York, and remained devoted to urban realism. Tradition Redefined allows East Tennessee viewers familiar with the brothers’ work an opportunity to evaluate it within the broader context of African American art of the last century.

Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art is organized by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park. This exhibition is supported, in part, by a special fund from the Office of the President at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. The works are owned by Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; The Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Collection of African American Art

Exhibit Link 

Les Amis de Beauford Delaney 

(Blog dedicated to all things Beauford Delaney)

MEDIA NEWS: Greenwich pair to donate major collection to Georgia Museum of Art

Art lovers Larry and Brenda Thompson have collected more than 600 works of art over the past 30-40 years.

Couple donates 100 works by Black artists

From: ctpost.com

Published: January 6, 2012

GREENWICH -- A Greenwich couple who amassed one of the nation's major private collections of African-American art is donating 100 works to the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens.

Larry and Brenda Thompson also will fund a new curatorial position at the museum, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which first reported the plans.

The couple's contributions are "transformative" for the official state art museum of Georgia, museum board Chairman Carl Mullis said.

"It is truly an amazing gift to the museum, to the University of Georgia and to all the people of Georgia," Mullis said.

The donations include pieces by Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wadsworth Jarrell and Radcliffe Bailey.

Larry Thompson, a former U.S. deputy attorney general based in Atlanta and retired general counsel and secretary for PepsiCo, lived in Georgia for 30 years. His wife is a retired Atlanta Public Schools clinical school psychologist. They have spent recent years living in Greenwich.

The Thompsons said they were both moved by a comment an African-American high school student made after viewing the nationally touring exhibit from their collection, "Tradition Redefined."

"They always told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, that I could be an artist," the student wrote in the feedback book at the University of Maryland's David C. Driskell Center. "But no one ever told me I could create the kind of art I wanted to create."

The collection represented freedom to the student, Brenda Thompson said.

"We hope other students -- black, white or whatever -- will see the work and get that same feeling:, that you can't just typecast African-American art," she said.

Source 

Georgia Museum Receives Major Collection

Salisbury native, spouse donate African-American Artwork to Georgia Museum


Couple gifts their 'best works' to Georgia art museum