LEO TWIGGS
Book Signing
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
7:00 – 9:00 pm
@
if ART Gallery
1223 Lincoln Street
Columbia, SC 29205
for the recently published book
Messages
From Home:
The
Art of Leo Twiggs
320 pages; 160 color images; essays by Leo Twiggs,
William Eiland, Frank Martin & Wim Roefs
Orangeburg,
S.C.; Claflin University Press, 2011
Regular Price: $75
Special Book Signing Price: $65
+ 7%
sales tax
To reserve copy/copies, please contact Wim Roefs
At
its location at 1223 Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC, if ART Gallery presents and
book signing with batik artist Leo Twiggs for Messages From Home: The Art of Leo Twiggs, which was published
recently by Claflin University Press in Orangeburg, S.C. The signing will take
place on Wednesday, December 14, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. The book will be for sale
during the book signing for a discounted price of $65; the regular price is
$75.
The
230-page book contains 160 color plates of Twiggs' work of the past 45 years
and essays by Twiggs, Georgia Museum of Art director William Eiland, South
Carolina State University art historian Frank Martin and if ART Gallery owner
Wim Roefs.
In
nine short essays, Orangeburg resident Twiggs discusses several series of his
work and the personal experiences that were the impetus for the series. Eiland
wrote the book’s foreword while Martin contributed an analysis of Twiggs’s work
titled “The Art of Leo Twiggs as a Metaphor of Lived Experience.” Roefs essay,
“Leo Twiggs: Batik Artist,” provides an overview of Twiggs’ career and working
methods as well as a discussion of his work.
Twiggs
is one of the most prominent artists, art educators and art administrators in
South Carolina of the past four decades. He is widely regarded as the foremost
pioneer in the United States in developing batik as a modern art form. Twiggs
was born in 1934 in St. Stephen, S.C.
He received his BA from Claflin University, studying with Arthur Rose.
He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and earned his MA from New York
University, where he studied with the legendary African-American artist Hale
Woodruff. Twiggs was the first African American to receive the doctorate in art
education from the University of Georgia and the first visual artist to receive
Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award, South Carolina’s Governor’s Award for the Arts.
Twiggs’
paintings are done in a unique batik process that he developed through an
innovative manipulation of the traditional technique. He has won international
recognition and numerous awards. Several works have been selected for U.S.
Embassies in Rome, Sierra Leone and Senegal, among other places. He has had some 70 solo exhibitions and
has exhibited at the Studio Museum in New York and in shows at the American
Crafts Museum, the Mint Museum in Charlotte and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum
at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Twiggs work is in museum collections
throughout the United States.
In
2001, Twiggs was selected to design an ornament for the White House Christmas
tree. In 2004, the Georgia Museum of Art organized a major retrospective of his
work, which toured the southeast, including a stop at the S.C. State Museum in
Columbia. A Claflin Homecoming, The Art
of Leo Twiggs was organized by the Rose Museum at Claflin University in
2007.
Twiggs’
most recent solo exhibition, his largest to date, is Civil/Uncivil: The Art of Leo Twiggs at Charleston’s City Gallery
at Waterfront Park. The April – May 2011 exhibition, curated by if ART’s Roefs,
addressed the legacy of the Civil War and Civil Rights in the U.S. South. The
exhibition was organized by the City of Charleston in commemoration of the 150th
anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.
Twiggs
is Professor Emeritus at S.C. State University, where he was chair of the art
department and director of the Stanback Museum. He is Distinguished Artist-in Residence at Claflin
University.
To see work from the book available at if ART Gallery, CLICK HERE
To see work from the book available at if ART Gallery, CLICK HERE
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