Telfair Contemporaries Arty Party Lecture 2025 Telfair Museums 2025-09-25 | Couldn't make it to the Arty Party this year? No worries! Here you can catch the lecture by featured artist, Raheleh Filsoofi, as well as her follow up discussion with Telfair's curator of modern and contemporary art, Erin Dunn.
PULSE Art + Technology Festival 2025 Telfair Museums 2025-02-12 | The PULSE Art + Technology Festival returned to the Jepson Center for its 18th year, showcasing digital works by local artists and kicking off with an opening lecture by renowned electronic artist Jim Campbell.Videography courtesy of Julian Rutledge.
A Measure of Time: Anila Quayyum Agha Telfair Museums 2024-08-26 | View the exhibition June 14 - September 15, 2024Jepson Center Savannah, Georgia'A Measure of Time' is a solo presentation of sculptures and mixed media works on paper by internationally acclaimed artist Anila Quayyum Agha (b. 1965). Agha was born in Lahore, Pakistan where she received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore. She later immigrated to the United States and attended the University of North Texas, obtaining an MFA in Fiber Arts. Currently, she resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Augusta, Georgia, where she is a professor and the Eminent Morris Scholar of Fine Art at Augusta University. Drawing from her experiences as a Pakistani woman and immigrant, Agha’s work is global in scope—crossing cultures and boundaries to explore shared humanity.Her large-scale suspended sculptural cube, A Beautiful Despair, created in view of the recent pandemic with its associated losses and gains, transforms the gallery space through cast shadows consisting of floral and geometric patterns inspired by Islamic artistic motifs of Asia and Africa. The enveloping environment offers an inclusive space for all visitors of all backgrounds for a communal experience. Stealing Beauty, a mirrored stainless-steel multi-layered wall relief of intertwining floral patterns, references South Asian Islamic culture and the designs of 19th-century British textile designer William Morris. Activated by light, the shadows on the wall shiver and dance, resulting in an amalgamation of patterns that raise questions of inspiration and appropriation, commerce and movement. In addition to Agha’s steel installations, the exhibition features several mixed media works on paper made through traditional craft methods such as embroidery. The wall-based works offer an intimate viewing experience and encourage visitors to consider how certain materials and artmaking forms have traditionally been gendered. These works aim to redefine our perceptions of craft and handiwork as significant and poignant forms of creative expression. Ultimately, Agha’s consideration of the deeply entwined relationships between gender, culture, religion, labor, and social codes strives to bring people of different worldviews together in one space to create dialogue, mutual understanding, and future change.This exhibition is organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Erin Dunn, curator of modern and contemporary art.telfair.org/exhibitions/measure-of-time
A Measure of Time Artist Talk with Anila Quayyum Agha Telfair Museums 2024-08-09 | Internationally acclaimed artist Anila Quayyum Agha speaks with Telfair's curator of modern and contemporary art Erin Dunn on her influences, inspirations, and artistic practice in connection to the exhibition 'A Measure of Time' on view at the Jepson Center. Explore the exhibition June 14 - September 15, 2024.
Telfair Childrens Art Museum (CAM) Progress Telfair Museums 2024-05-21 | In July 2023, Telfair Museums welcomed the public to its newest addition: the Telfair Children’s Art Museum at the Jepson Center. The culmination of a years-long project, the museum partnered with Savannah design firm FREN Inc. to create a transformative space that ignites creativity and inspires children of all ages.On the museum’s third floor, visitors access CAM through an engaging Tunnel Gallery that tells the story of Impressionism before proceeding through an interactive, digital Portrait Gallery that overlooks the Family Lounge, the Oglethorpe Street windows, and the south historic district. On the second floor, CAM visitors can enjoy hands-on activities in the open play spaces of the Family Lounge and the Toddler Area, before immersing themselves in the state-of-the-art, interactive Landscape Gallery, which brings the concepts of Impressionism to life. Admissions to CAM is included with regular admissions.
Frank Stewarts Nexus: An American Photographers Journey, 1960s to the Present Telfair Museums 2024-04-15 | View the exhibition Feb 9 – May 12, 2024Jepson CenterSavannah, GeorgiaFrank Stewart’s Nexus is the first major museum exhibition of photographer Frank Stewart’s work and centers on his sensitive and spontaneous approach to portraying world cultures and Black life in many forms—including music, art, travel, food, and dance. Organized into thematic groupings, the retrospective traces his explorations of life on the road and the trajectory of his stylistic journey, bringing together a comprehensive visual autobiography through over 100 black-and-white and color images. For more than six decades, Stewart has captured intimate and empathetic images of life experienced and observed across subjects, cities, and countries. He has drawn inspiration from trips to Africa and Cuba, travels as the lead photographer for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and powerful examinations of our ever-changing landscape.Stewart’s photographs experiment with size, format, and printing. Less-explored aspects of his career include his more abstract and painterly Drawings series, inspired by his travels and his quest for self-understanding. Color has dominated Stewart’s photography for the past two decades, and in more recent, larger-scale images he forefronts the transforming environment. Always at the heart of his varied and evolving practice is a familiarity Stewart creates with the people and places that inhabit his works.The exhibition is co-organized by The Phillips Collection and Telfair Museums and curated by Ruth Fine, formerly of the National Gallery of Art in DC, and Fred Moten, poet, scholar, and professor of performance studies at NYU’s Tisch School of Fine Arts.The coordinating curator for the presentation at Telfair Museums is Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.telfair.org/exhibitions/frank-stewarts-nexus
Frank Stewarts Nexus Opening Lecture with Frank Stewart and Fred Moten Telfair Museums 2024-02-15 | Poet and scholar Fred Moten leads a conversation with artist Frank Stewart.About Frank Stewart: Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frank Stewart grew up in Memphis and Chicago. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was a student of Garry Winogrand and received a BFA in photography from The Cooper Union in New York, where he studied with Roy DeCarava. Stewart became the assistant and photographer to the artist Romare Bearden after the two met in 1975 while filming the documentary Two Centuries of Black American Art, a project organized by David C. Driskell. Stewart has exhibited photographs at The High Museum, Atlanta; Cooper Union Gallery, Studio Museum in Harlem, Schomburg Center for Research, the International Center of Photography, in New York; Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC. He was a member of the first team of North American journalists invited by the Center for Cuban Studies to visit Cuba in 1977. He was also invited by the Los Angeles Olympic Committee to photograph the 1984 Summer Olympics. He has twice been granted a photographic fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a New York Creative Artist Public Service Award. He is a member of Kamoinge, an African-American photography collective based in New York. For three decades, he photographed the renowned performers for Jazz at Lincoln Center.About Fred Moten: Fred Moten is concerned with social movement, aesthetic experiment and black study and has worked on several projects that try to approach these matters. The latest of these are an album called Fred Moten/Brandon López/Gerald Cleaver (Reading Group Records, 2022) and a book called All Incomplete (Minor Compositions, 2021), co-authored with Stefano Harney. In addition to his collaborations with Harney and with López and Cleaver, Moten has worked with many other artists, artist collectives, scholars, and study groups, including Arika, the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy, Renee Gladman, Renée Green, the Institute for Physical Sociality, the Jazz Study Group, Jennie C. Jones, Le Mardi Gras Listening Collective, The Otolith Group, William Parker, Moved by the Motion and the Harris-Moten Quartet. Moten lives in New York teaches performance studies and comparative literature at New York University.'Frank Stewart's Nexus' is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Exhibition investment is provided by the City of Savannah and the Georgia Council for the Arts. Major exhibition funding provided by Bob Faircloth. Special thanks to our Directors' Council Members for their annual exhibition support. The exhibition is co-organized by The Phillips Collection and Telfair Museums and curated by Ruth Fine, formerly of the National Gallery of Art in DC, and Fred Moten, poet, scholar, and professor of performance studies at NYU’s Tisch School of Fine Arts.The coordinating curator for the presentation at Telfair Museums is Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
FOT Presents: Masculine Mentalities with Dr. Sandy Slater Telfair Museums 2023-10-26 | The Friends of the Owens-Thomas House (FOT) is proud to present a fascinating lecture on masculinity in the low country during the early 19th century with Dr. Sandy Slater.
DC Lecture: The Black Prince and The Age of Armor Telfair Museums 2023-10-20 | Dr. Michael Livingston, author of "Crécy: Battle of Five Kings," presents an enlightening lecture in connection to one of the most iconic works in Telfair's collection. Dr. Livingston is a two-time winner of the Distinguished Book Prize from the international Society for Military History (2017, 2020), an author of bestselling fiction, and award-winning full professor at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. He serves as the Secretary-General for the United States Commission on Military History and sits on the Board of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
Fantasies in Steel: The Age of Armor Telfair Museums 2023-07-06 | Arms and armor has a perennial draw on the human imagination. It was mythologized by the cultures that produced it, and it remains a vibrant part of modern mythologies through stories, cinema, and digital games. But what about the realities behind the myth? Who made the armor, who wore it, how well did it work—and how did it come to be in Savannah half a millennium later? Join Jeffrey L. Forgeng, curator of 'The Age of Armor,' as he takes you on a personal journey through highlights of the exhibition and the centuries of human stories forged into the steel of these objects.
Boxed In/Break Out Artist Talk 2023 Telfair Museums 2023-06-02 | In conversation with curator of modern and contemporary art Erin Dunn, Kaminska shares insights about her artistic practice and her inspiration for her multidisciplinary project 'Retreating.'
Directors Circle Art Spotlight Lecture with Michelle Andonian Telfair Museums 2023-05-17 | Award-winning photographer Michelle Andonian has chronicled Detroit, Detroiters, and their ways of life for more than 40 years. From having breakfast with Andy Warhol to photographing orphans in Inner Mongolia, her camera has been an invitation to many different worlds. She invites you on a visual journey that will take you from the automotive factories of her hometown to Armenia, the land of her ancestors.
Frederic Church, The Collector: Lecture with Dr. Coleman Telfair Museums 2023-02-13 | Dr. William L. Coleman explores the personal art collecting of Hudson River School landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), a contemporary of Mary Telfair and Carl Brandt.
2022 Jacob & Gwendolyn Lawrence Lecture: Elegies Telfair Museums 2022-10-05 | Telfair Museums presents the annual Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Lecture as a panel discussion with two noted contemporary artists featured in the exhibition, 'Elegies: Still Lifes in Contemporary Art,' Brittney Leeanne Williams and Elizabeth Colomba in conversation with Monique Long, the show’s curator.
Fashioning Frida - Directors Circle Art Spotlight Lecture Telfair Museums 2022-06-13 | Raissa Bretaña, a New York City-based fashion historian, will ponder the deliberate clothing choices of the ever-popular artist Frida Kahlo. Looking closely at photographs from Telfair’s collection, along with other images of the artist, Bretaña will discuss how Kahlo is the only artist whose image is more recognized than her artwork. She will delve into the fashion choices the artist made and what they represent.
Boxed In/Break Out 2022 Opening Lecture | #art912 N/um Telfair Museums 2022-05-13 | Enjoy an exciting lecture with this year’s Boxed In/Break Out winning artist, Tafy LaPlanche, as she discusses the exhibition 'N/um'.The exhibition features a total of five paintings by LaPlanche, which are on view in the public-facing windows of the Jepson Center on Barnard Street through April 2023.
The Art of William O. Golding Opening Lecture Telfair Museums 2022-04-29 | (March 31, 2022) Telfair opens the largest exhibition to date devoted to William O. Golding, an African American seaman who made memory drawings of ships and ports while in Savannah’s Marine Hospital during the 1930s. Learn more about the artist with Harry DeLorme, curator of the exhibition, Ahmauri Williams-Alford, assistant curator of historical interpretation and programs, and Jacquelyn Cox-Crite, great-grand niece of the artist. The exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, the first devoted to this significant American artist.
The Art of William O. Golding: Hard Knocks, Hardships, and Lots of Experience Exhibition Preview Telfair Museums 2022-04-29 | On View April 1–August 28, 2022Telfair Museums presents the first large museum survey of the work of William O. Golding (1874-1943), an African American seaman and artist who recorded a half-century of maritime experience in more than one hundred vibrant drawings. In the 1930s, Golding was a patient at the United States Marine Hospital in Savannah, where he represented his experiences in expressive pencil and crayon drawings which combine memory, imagination, and sailors’ lore. 72 works will be exhibited, including 23 drawings from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection, and others from the Morris Museum of Art, The Georgia Museum of Art, and private collections. The exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog, the first devoted to this significant American artist.
Sugar Opening Lecture (July 29, 2021) Telfair Museums 2021-08-23 | Cyndi Sommers, Telfair’s Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, for a fascinating look at the history of sugar, the social and societal change brought about by this product, and how it impacted the decorative arts.
Never Spoken Again Opening Lecture (June 17, 2021) Telfair Museums 2021-07-22 | (Recorded on June 17, 2021) Join David Ayala-Alfonso, curator of the exhibition, Never Spoken Again, for a discussion of this exhibition that questions the underpinnings of modern collections. Ayala-Alfonso will be joined in the discussion by artist Sofia de Grenade, whose work will be on view in the exhibition.About the Exhibition:On a desk of the private study collection of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, an old stuffed parrot guards a small library and a vast, yet obsolete ornithology collection. An excited young scientist reads a story on the origins of the desiccated animal for the purpose of entertaining a group of visitors: it may have been the last “speaker” of a dead Indigenous language from colonial Venezuela, or a German prince’s precious gift to the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. There is no clear understanding which of these versions, if any, might be true. This long-obscured anecdote inspires Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections, a traveling exhibition that reflects on the birth of modern collections, their origin stories, and the art institutions that sustain them. The unknown truth of the story invites speculation and encourages the formation of alternative narratives surrounding the works on view. The exhibition collects stories of fabrication, chance, and deceit that live silently, yet dynamically, between the layers of modern history.The internationally recognized contemporary artists featured in the exhibition, including Morehshin Allahyari, Daniel R. Small, Carlos Motta, and Michael Rakowitz, perform as artist-scholars, opening a critique of material culture, iconography, and political ecologies. Their practices examine not only the objects and the systems of distribution that facilitate their circulation but also the disciplines and subjects of study that perpetuate boundaries. The works shed light on myths, simulations, fake currencies, war games, and the slow violence of systematic racism that historically underpin collecting practices. In conjunction with the Telfair Museums-organized exhibition Progressive Regression: Examination of a 19th Century Museum, on view at the Telfair Academy, there is a call for a renewed consideration surrounding human agency in how our histories and futures may be reimagined.Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections is curated by David Ayala-Alfonso and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). It is the result of a new series of programs, pioneered with the support of the Hartfield Foundation, aimed at providing opportunities to alumni of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive as they move through the stages of their career, and reflecting ICI’s commitment to fostering and championing new curatorial voices who will shape the future of the field. Never Spoken Again is made possible with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum, with additional support from SAHA. The presentation at Telfair Museums has been organized in collaboration with Erin Dunn, associate curator of modern and contemporary art.Visit telfair.org for more info.
#art912 re-cor-dare Virtual Opening Lecture with Sauda Mitchell Telfair Museums 2021-05-28 | Presented and recorded on April 15, 2021Telfair Museums presents a virtual opening lecture of #art912 re-cor-dare with Sauda Mitchell.re-core-dare is a solo #art912 exhibition of Savannah-based artist Sauda Mitchell (American, B. 1981). The exhibition explores aspects of the black experience through visual responses to archival collection materials. Using archival research, printmaking, and QR code technology, the works on view will trace the veins of history into the present day and restore the emotional pull of memories after the passage of time.This exhibition is organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.re-cor-dare will be on view at the Jepson Center in Savannah, Ga from April 16, 2021–February 22, 2022. telfair.org/exhibitions/re-cor-dare-sauda-mitchell
#art912 re-cor-dare Exhibition Video Telfair Museums 2021-05-28 | Re-Cor-Dare is a solo #art912 exhibition of Savannah-based artist Sauda Mitchell (American, b. 1981). Mitchell’s prints, paintings, and artist books serve as compelling visual responses to her sustained engagement with archival collection materials. In researching personal papers, photographs, artifacts, and curated digital collections, her work explores thematic topics of study relating to the Black experience. Utilizing QR codes, selected works link to digitized collection materials focusing on their ability as teaching tools recalling stories embedded within the African American collective memory.The hyphenated title, Re-Cor-Dare, calls attention to the definition of the word “record” through its Latin roots―explicitly “Cor” (heart) and “Dare” (to give). Through five distinct but interconnecting series, Mitchell traces the legacies of slavery in the United States from the Middle Passage to present-day social injustices faced by Black Americans. Ultimately, her work exists as a catalyst for discussion, reflection, and a celebration of the human spirit.This exhibition will be on view at the Jepson Center in Savannah, Ga from April 16, 2021–February 22, 2022.About the Artist:Sauda Mitchell is an American printmaker, archivist, and educator from Winston Salem, NC. She holds an Associate of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Phoenix, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Art with a minor in Art History from the Savannah College of Art and Design, a Master’s in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from Drexel University, and is certified by the Academy of Certified Archivists. She currently serves as the SCAD Jen Library Archives and Special Collections Librarian at the Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2017, Mitchell was an artist in residence at SCAD. She has exhibited locally at The Beach Institute and SCAD MOA. Select works are currently held in the permanent collection of the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Curators Choice Virtual Opening Lecture (Recorded on April 29, 2021) Telfair Museums 2021-05-25 | The exhibition Curators’ Choice based on the exciting, new publication Telfair Museums: Curators’ Choice (2021), is an opportunity to celebrate key pieces from the museum’s varied collection. These selected objects—such as the striking sugar basket created by the English female silversmith, Hester Bateman, or Frederick Carl Frieseke’s riotously colorful painting, The Garden Umbrella—shed light on the museum’s unique history and collecting practices.Lecture will be a Telfair Curatorial Panel presentation. Telfair Curators Harry DeLorme, Erin Dunn, and Anne-Solene Bayan, together with Executive Director Ben Simons, will be joined by special guests, Courtney McNeil and Shannon-Browning Mullis.Sponsored by Telfair Academy Guild.Curators' Choice will be on view at the Jepson Center in Savannah, GA from April 30, 2021–February 22, 2022.To learn more, visit telfair.org/exhibitions/curators-choice
Soundtrack of Savannah presented by The Savannah Philharmonic and Telfair Museums Telfair Museums 2021-05-06 | Telfair Museums and the Savannah Philharmonic have teamed up for an exciting new video collaboration connecting music and the visual arts in the latest episode of The Savannah Philharmonic's 'Soundtrack of Savannah' series. In the video series, friends and neighbors are invited to partner with Savannah Philharmonic to showcase, visit, and explore the unique places, flavors, and events of our beloved city. In this episode, Telfair and the Savannah Philharmonic are proud to bring the exhibition 'Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage' to life through musical performances and special guests. 'Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage' is on view at the Jepson Center through May 31, 2021.
Picasso to Hockney Virtual Opening Lecture Telfair Museums 2021-03-11 | Telfair Museums presents an exciting virtual lecture by R. Scott Blackshire, Ph.D., Curator of the Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts at the McNay Art Museum. Lecture sponsored by Telfair Academy Guild.
2021 PULSE Art + Technology Festival Opening Lecture by David Gumbs Telfair Museums 2021-02-26 | About the Exhibition:David Gumbs: From Dust to Gold /Interactive Art and DrawingThis exhibition represents the first U.S. solo exhibition by Caribbean artist David Gumbs, featuring immersive, interactive digital installations and drawings. Gumbs is a multi-disciplinary artist from the island of Saint-Martin, currently based in Martinique. Gumbs work is often concerned with “the offscreen of perception” and informed by the Caribbean environment, the impacts of global warming and the legacy of colonialism. He graduated from the Visual Arts school in Fort-de-France, Martinique in 2001 and in 2002 studied Interactive Multimedia Conception at Les Ateliers, L’ENSCI in Paris. Gumbs has exhibited his drawings, video and interactive work internationally at venues including Paris City Hall; Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum; Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles; Prizm Art Fair, Miami Art Week; the 2017 Jamaica Biennial and Currents New Media Festival, Santa Fe. In 2016 he was awarded the Davidoff Art Initiative Artist in Residence in Beijing, China. At Telfair, Gumbs will show one of his large-scale installations Blossoms, exhibit several new interactive video works, and show drawings on paper linking his new media work to his practice of intuitive drawing.
New Years Greeting from Telfair Museums Director and CEO, Ben Simons Telfair Museums 2021-01-12 | ...
Telfair Museums 2020 Lawrence Lecture with Photographer Frank Stewart Telfair Museums 2020-12-03 | (November 18, 2020) Telfair Museums’ annual 2020 Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Lecture will take place this year in virtual form, with a presentation by noted photographer Frank Stewart. Stewart is known for his five decades photographing jazz musicians from Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis. Stewart will be joined in conversation by two friends and colleagues: noted collector and founder of the Lawrence Lecture series Dr. Walter O. Evans, and Rob Gibson, former Executive and Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival. One of Stewart’s photographs is included in the current Telfair exhibition Youthful Adventures: Growing Up in Photography, and the museum holds two of Stewart’s photographs in its permanent collection. The program will include discussion of highlights from Stewart’s long career with a special focus on his work created in Savannah over the many years when Stewart was senior staff photographer for both Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Savannah Music Festival. The virtual lecture is free of charge by reservation, sponsored by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, and presented by Telfair Museums and Telfair’s Friends of African American Arts, in partnership with the Savannah Music Festival.To learn more, visit telfair.org.
#art912 Emily Earl Virtual Artist Talk Telfair Museums 2020-11-06 | (August 13, 2020) Late Night Polaroids: Photographs by Emily Earl is a solo #art912 exhibition with Savannah-based artist Emily Earl (American, B. 1985) featuring her series Late Night Polaroids. Over the past eight years, Earl has roamed the streets of Savannah with her Polaroid ProPack Camera to document the nightlife of the city. Culminating in the exhibition, the series concludes this year as she finishes the last pack of the discontinued Fujifilm 3000b black-and-white instant film. Influenced by other street photographers such as Weegee, Brassai, Jill Freedman, and Walker Evans, Earl’s black-and-white portraits are a collection of late-night flashes that capture the energy of downtown Savannah after dark. As patrons leave the bars with a drink in their hands, courtesy of the city’s open container law, the streets and sidewalks are often where people really come together to make a connection and be discovered by Earl’s camera. She finds moments of darting eye contact and unabashed body language to tell the stories of the characters and dramas that play out in the late hours of a steamy Savannah night.To learn more, visit Telfair.org.
Legacy of Slavery in Savannah Book Club Virtual Meeting – Julie Armstrong – October 8, 2020 Telfair Museums 2020-10-12 | Julie Armstrong – Mary Turner and the Memory of Lynching. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
#art912 Emily Earl Virtual Artist Talk Telfair Museums 2020-09-29 | (August 13, 2020) Savannah-based photographer Emily Earl and Telfair Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art present a virtual lecture on the exhibition Late Night Polaroids: Photographs by Emily Earl. Over the past eight years, Earl has roamed the streets of Savannah with her Polaroid ProPack Camera to document the nightlife of the city.
Youthful Adventures Opening Lecture Telfair Museums 2020-09-29 | Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art presents a virtual opening lecture on the exhibition 'Youthful Adventures: Growing Up in Photography.' Discover how photographers from the 1940s to the present have documented a diversity of experiences of growing up, from early childhood to young adult.Sponsored by the Telfair Academy Guild.Free to Telfair members and the public.
Youthful Adventures Opening Lecture Telfair Museums 2020-09-25 | (September 16) Discover how photographers from the 1940s to the present have documented a diversity of experiences of growing up, from early childhood to young adult.This exhibition was curated by Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.Sponsored by the Telfair Academy Guild.Free to Telfair members and the public.
Unpretentious Garden by Gari Melchers - Art Meditation Telfair Museums 2020-09-21 | Take a moment to breathe with an artful meditation presented by Telfair Museums.
Cut and Paste Virtual Lecture Telfair Museums 2020-08-19 | Speakers include the exhibition’s Curator, Didi Dunphy, Atlanta-based artist Jerushia Graham, and Savannah-based artist Betsy Cain. Free to Telfair Members and the public. 'Cut and Paste: Works of Paper' examines the ways in which contemporary artists manipulate paper to create remarkable drawn, sculptural, assembled, woven, or folded works of art. Featuring 11 Georgia artists, the work on view not only speaks to the long history of the paper industry in the South, but also to present-day issues expressed through the fragile but versatile medium. From detailed hand cutting to mark making, draping and folding, casting and silhouettes, both wall-bound and sculptural reliefs consider current possibilities of paper and highlight artists using these magical techniques, leading viewers to suspend their belief of a material nature. This exhibition celebrates the vitality of a relatively old material that has been reinvented and reinterpreted through the skill of the artists on view.Organized by the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia and Lyndon House Arts Center. This program is supported in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The Council is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. The presentation of this exhibition at Telfair Museums is curated by Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.telfair.org/exhibitions/cut-and-paste-works-of-paper
Virtual Juneteenth Lecture Telfair Museums 2020-06-25 | Join speakers Vaughnette Goode-Walker (historian, operator of Footprints of Savannah, museum director) and Dr. Alvin Jackson (co-founder and President, Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center) for Telfair Museums’ Virtual Juneteenth Lecture. Ms. Goode-Walker will address why we celebrate Juneteenth in Savannah and discuss secret schools operated in the city before Emancipation. Dr. Jackson will discuss the Willow Hill School, founded in 1874 by formally enslaved individuals in Portal, Georgia. After operating as a school for 125 years, the site was saved by former students and descendants and is now a museum and community resource center.
Virtual Artist Talk: Amiri Farris Telfair Museums 2020-06-09 | Artist Amiri Farris and Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for a discussion of Farris’ work and his new site-specific installation Breakout! in the exterior windows along Barnard Street at Telfair’s Jepson Center.
Complex Uncertainties: Artists in Postwar America Virtual Exhibition Tour Telfair Museums 2020-06-09 | From the rise of America as a world superpower after WWII—and with it, a distinctly individual and identifiably “American” approach to artmaking—to the proliferation of technologies that homogenize American culture today, artists have always been at the forefront of social response. Complex Uncertainties is an evolving exhibition grounded by works in Telfair’s modern and contemporary collection that sheds light on these responses and reveals some of the ways in which historic events challenge artists to explore unknowns, construct narratives, and react to power.
Virtual Exhibition Tour: Machines of Futility Telfair Museums 2020-06-02 | This exhibition of interactive and kinetic art highlights artists making machines that use humor and absurdity to question the usefulness of technology. The exhibition includes artist Neil Mendoza’s Robotic Voice Activated Word Kicking Machine, which humorously visualizes how machines hear or don’t hear what we say, substituting an absurd apparatus for the unseen technology in our pockets and homes.
William Kwamena Poh tells a Story of Ghana Telfair Museums 2020-05-21 | William Kwamena-Poh is a self-taught artist from Ghana, West Africa. He came to the United States in the early 1980s when his father, a noted history professor at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, received a Fulbright scholarship to teach African history at Talladega College, Alabama.In this video, Kwamena-Poh shares an Ananse story that he recalls hearing as a child in Ghana, West Africa.For more information and to download our companion activity sheet, please visit www.telfair.org/event/virtual-art-start-may/.
Launching Savannahs Art Scene Tour Telfair Museums 2020-04-27 | Chief Curator of Telfair Museums, Courtney McNeil, offers an insightful virtual tour of 'Launching Savannah's Art Scene: Founders of the Savannah Art ClubAbout the Exhibition:One hundred years ago, the Savannah Art Club (now known as the Savannah Art Association) was founded to “develop art appreciation in individuals and further art in the community.” The group still exists today and is the oldest art association in the state of Georgia. From its inception in February of 1920, the Savannah Art Club quickly rose to become a site of major support for Savannah artists, helping to pave the way for the vibrant arts community that flourishes in Savannah today.In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Savannah Art Club, Telfair presents this exhibition of work by and about the founding members of the club, including local favorites such as Lila Cabaniss, Anna Hunter, Mary Comer Lane, Juliette Gordon Low, Christopher A.D. Murphy, Hattie Saussy, Margaret Gray Thomas, Emma Wilkins, and others. Savannah paintings by visiting Savannah Art Club teachers William Chadwick and Eliot Clark demonstrate how leading artists of the day took inspiration from Savannah during their time as visiting instructors.
Collecting Impressionism: Telfairs Modern Vision Telfair Museums 2020-03-12 | In the 1870s, a radical new style of painting made its debut: Impressionism. Artists associated with the Impressionist movement broke with tradition by focusing on the effects of light and atmosphere, featuring a bright palette of vibrant colors and choppy, textured brushstrokes, and by taking modern life, rather than scenes from history or mythology, as their subject. This avant-garde style of art making quickly spread from its epicenter in Paris to other artistic hubs throughout Europe, the United States, and the world. In Savannah, Telfair Museums began acquiring and exhibiting canvases by French, German, and American Impressionist painters as early as 1906, often purchasing works directly from the artists themselves.In this exhibition, Telfair Museums digs deep into its more than 7,000-work permanent collection to reveal some of the most striking examples of American, German, and French Impressionism in the United States. Collecting Impressionism: Telfair’s Modern Vision traces the early 20th-century footsteps of noted Telfair art advisor Gari Melchers (1860–1932) as he traveled the country and the globe identifying remarkable examples of the avant-garde art movement and giving them a permanent home in Savannah. His prescient collecting decisions laid the groundwork for one of the most important and beloved parts of Telfair’s collection.The exhibition tells the story of Impressionism through Telfair’s unique lens, highlighting more than three dozen works by Jean-François Raffaëlli, George Sauter, Ernst Oppler, George Hitchcock, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, William Merritt Chase, and many more, including Melchers himself.
#art912 Artist Talk with William Kwamena-Poh Telfair Museums 2019-12-16 | Telfair Museums presents an artist talk with Savannah-based artist William Kwamena-Poh in conversation with Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The discussion centered on our #art912 exhibition The Journey is Mine: Chapter One, on view at the Jepson Center.
Michael TwittyTMlow Telfair Museums 2019-10-24 | Michael Twitty, African-American Jewish writer, culinary historian, and educator, speaks at Telfair Museums' Jepson Center, October, 13,2019. He is the author of The Cooking Gene, published by HarperCollins/Amistad, which won the 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award for Book of the Year as well as the category for writing.
Mocha Dick Installation at Telfair Museums Telfair Museums 2019-10-21 | Tristin Lowe’s "Mocha Dick" is a 52-foot-long, ghostly white sperm whale made of industrial wool felt. The artist was inspired by the whale that once harassed sailing ships near Mocha Island in the South Pacific Ocean. Described as having flesh as “white as wool,” that same whale was also the basis for Herman Melville’s novel, "Moby-Dick."This installation is part of the exhibition "Summon the Sea: Contemporary Artists and Moby Dick," on view November 1, 2019 – February 16, 2020 at Telfair Museums' Jepson Center.About the exhibition:Regarded as one of the great American novels, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) presents an allegorical story that has been reinterpreted over the past 168 years and still holds a prophetic power over our collective imagination. Scholars have long debated its interpretations of humanity’s dangerous search for meaning; conflict between good and evil; the struggle between individualism and socialism, between science and nature; the capitalistic quest for profits at any cost; and the triumphs and failings of American values."Summon the Sea! Contemporary Artists and Moby Dick" examines the work of six contemporary artists—Corey Arnold, Guy Ben-Ner, Patty Chang, Tristin Lowe, Allan Sekula, and Frank Stella—who act as epic storytellers as they respond to, challenge, and celebrate the allegories presented in Melville’s literary classic through large-scale sculpture, photography, prints, and video made since 1985. These artists were selected for the epic nature of their own searching: the bodies of work on view represent a similar tome-like status in each artist’s oeuvre—they were either painstakingly created over multiple years or were executed on an epic scale warranted by a novel like Moby-Dick. These artists’ work encourages dialogue about ecology and nature, economics and industry, human psychology and emotion.
2019 Lawrence Lecture Telfair Museums 2019-09-23 | Telfair Museums and the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation present the 2019 Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Lecture by Melissa L. Cooper, Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, and Talitha LeFlouria, the Lisa Smith Discovery Associate Professor in African and African-American Studies at the University of Virginia. Cooper and LeFlouria are coeditors of a forthcoming scholarly work produced in partnership with Telfair Museums that explores the legacy of slavery in Savannah and surrounding communities in the region.During this engaging conversation, curator Shannon Browning-Mullis interviews these impressive scholars about their past research on the region, Gullah identity, and African American women in the criminal justice system. They also discuss what brought them to the Legacy of Slavery in Savannah project and how they are creating the theoretical framework for its scholarship. The free lecture was sponsored by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation and co-presented by Telfair’s Friends of African American Arts.For more information, visit telfair.org.
200 Years of William Jay Architecture Telfair Museums 2019-08-23 | Architectural historian Robin Williams examines William Jay’s Savannah buildings and how they changed the landscape of our city. From refined concepts of design to the latest in building technology, Jay introduced Savannah to an architectural sophistication that rivaled other, much larger American cities. Starting with the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, the succession of private residential commissions that Jay received allowed the young architect to mature as a designer experimenting with each as a variation on a theme. Their presence set a high standard for the city’s subsequent architectural development.Find out more about our exhibition "If These Walls Could Talk: 200 Years of William Jay Architecture" by visiting bit.ly/30vFCuz.
