Leo Twiggs

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Biography: Leo Twiggs

LEO TWIGGS (American, b. 1934)

Leo Twiggs, from Orangeburg, S.C., is among South Carolina’s most revered and important artists, arts educators and arts administrators of the past 50 years. His recent series of paintings inspired by the 2015 Charleston Massacre at Emanuel AME church has traveled extensively through the Carolinas. In 1980, Twiggs became the first visual artist to receive South Carolina’s Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts. His 2004 career retrospective, accompanied by a catalogue, opened at the Georgia Museum of Art and traveled to the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, S.C., the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Delta Fine Arts Center in Winston Salem, N.C., and the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia. Twiggs has had more than 70 solo exhibitions, the largest being Civil/Uncivil: The Art Of Leo Twiggs at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C., in 2011. His work was selected for the South Carolina State Museum’s 1999 millennium exhibition 100 Years, 100 Artists. Among the many other places where Twiggs has exhibited are New York City’s Studio Museum in Harlem; the Schenectady (N.Y.) Museum; the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, Italy; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Ithaca N.Y.; the Mississippi Museum of Art; and the American Crafts Museum in New York. Twiggs’ 1997 exhibition, Commemoration Revisited, a return to paintings of tattered images of Confederate flags 25 years earlier,received national attention. Already during the 1970s, his work was included in several national exhibitions representing a who’s who of African-American art.

Twiggs’ career and body of work is extensively documented in the 320-page, heavily illustrated, 2011 book Messages From Home: The Art Of Leo Twiggs(Orangeburg, SC: Claflin University Press). He is featured in dozens of books, articles and other publications, including Elton Fax’s 1977 book Black Artists of the New Generation; the Studio Museum’s 1978 catalogue Leo Twiggs: Down HomeLandscape; Samella Lewis’ 1990 book African American Arts and Artists; Amalia K. Amaki’s A Century of African American Art, 2004; and the 2006 if ART catalogue Leo Twiggs: Toward Another Retrospective.

Twiggs was born in 1934 in St. Stephen, S.C. In 1956, he received his B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C. In 1961, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1964 earned his MA from New York University, and in 1971was the first African-American to receive a doctorate in art education from the University of Georgia. Formerly a distinguished professor of art and executive director of the I.P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C., Twiggs is S.C. State professor emeritus and distinguished artist-in-residence at Claflin University.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Inventory: February 15-26, 2008

Moving Targets, 2006

Batik on cotton

6 x 7 3/4 in

$1,950

if ART

presents at

Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C.

THE INVENTORY:

A Group Show of if ART artists

Feb. 15 – 26, 2008

Artists’ Reception: Friday, Feb. 15, 5 – 10 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m.

Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. and by appointment

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:

(803) 238-2351 – wroefs@sc.rr.com

For its February exhibition, if ART presents The Inventory, a group exhibition of artists from if ART Gallery. The show will consist of many new works by if ART artists as well as older pieces from the gallery’s inventory.

Included in the show will be work by Columbia artists Jeff Donovan, Mary Gilkerson, Marcelo Novo, Anna Redwine and David Yaghjian. Other South Carolina artists include Carl Blair, Jeri Burdick, Phil Garrett, Bill Jackson, Peter Lenzo, Dorothy Netherland, Matt Overend, Edward Rice, Tom Stanley, Christine Tedesco, H. Brown Thornton, Leo Twiggs, Katie Walker and Paul Yanko. Furthermore, the show will present work by former South Carolina residents Tonya Gregg, Eric Miller and Andy Moon. Also included are California collage artist Jerry Harris, Dutch painter Kees Salentijn and German artists Roland Albert, Klaus Hartmann and Silvia Rudolf.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Resume: Leo Twiggs

Leo Twiggs was born in St. Stephen, South Carolina. He received his BA Summa Cum Laude from Claflin University, later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and received his MA from New York University where he studied with Hale Woodruff, the acclaimed African American painter and muralist. He received his doctorate in Art Education from the University of Georgia. As Professor of Art at South Carolina State University, he developed the Art Department and I.P. Stanback Museum. Twiggs was named Professor Emeritus in 2000.

In 1981, he received the Verner Award (Governor’s trophy) for outstanding individual contributions to the arts in South Carolina, the first visual artist so honored.

Twiggs’ paintings are done in a unique, innovative batik technique that he developed after several years of experimenting with the traditional medium. He has had over 60 one-man shows and his work has received international recognition, with exhibits at the Studio Museum and the American Crafts Museum in New York and in U. S. Embassies in Rome, Dakar and Togoland among others. His work has been widely published in art textbooks and featured in several television documentaries. In 2002, he was selected to design an ornament for the White House Christmas tree.

Selected Listings:
Myths and Metaphors: The Art of Leo Twiggs: Georgia Museum of Art,
University of Georgia, 2004.
Ragan, Rosalind: Art Talk, Glencoe Publishing, 1994.
Ragan, Rosalind: Art Connections Glencoe Publishing, 1997.
Catalogue: Art in the American Embassy, Dacca.
Who's Who in American Art, 1986-Present.
Ebony Magazine, September 1988.
Lewis, Samella: Art: African American, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1991
The St. James Guide to Black Artists: Thomas Riggs, Ed.
New York: St. James Press, 1997

Selected Exhibitions:
Studio Museum: New York
Schenectady Museum: New York
Herbert F. Johnson Museum: Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Harrison Museum: Roanoke, VA.
Palazzo Venezia: Rome, Italy
Hampton III Gallery: Greenville, SC.
Art in U.S. Embassies: Dakar, Togo land, Rome, Sierra Leone
Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: African American Crafts, A Traveling Exhibition - American Craft Museum, New York; Dallas Tex.; Oakland, Calif.; Atlanta, GA.; Washington, DC.
The Gibbes Museum, Charleston, S.C. (Spoleto USA) 2004
The Georgia Museum of Art University of Georgia
The Greenville Museum of Art: Greenville, S. C.
The Milton Rhodes Gallery: Winston Salem, N. C.

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Fame Factor: September 7-18, 2007

if ART PRESENTS AT GALLERY 80808/VISTA STUDIOS:

THE FAME FACTOR

Featuring art by:

Benny Andrews (American, 1930-2006) – Karel Appel (Dutch, 1921-2006) – Lynn Chadwick (British, 1914-2003) – Corneille (Dutch, b. 1922) – Jacques Doucet (French, 1924-1994) – John Hultberg (American, 1922-2005) – Richard Hunt (American, b. 1935) – Wilfredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982) – Ibram Lassaw (American, 1913-2003) – Ger Lataster (Dutch, b. 1920) – Lucebert (Dutch, 1924-1994) – Sam Middleton (American, b. 1927) ¬– Joan Mitchell (American, 1925-1992) – Hannes Postma (Dutch, b. 1933) – Reinhoud (Belgian, 1928-2007) – Paul Reed (American, b. 1919) – Edward Rice (American, b. 1953) – Kees Salentijn (Dutch, b. 1947) – Virginia Scotchie (American, b. 1959) – Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934) – Bram van Velde (Dutch, 1895-1981)

September 7 – 18, 2007

Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 7, 2007, 5:00 – 10:00 PM

Opening Hours: Weekdays, 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM; Sat., 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM;

Sun, 1:00 – 5:00 PM

In September, work by world-famous artists such as Joan Mitchell, Karel Appel, Lynn Chadwick, Wilfredo Lam and Bram van Velde will be in The Fame Factor, a group show at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia organized by if ART Gallery. The exhibition also will include if ART Gallery artists Leo Twiggs, Edward Rice, Kees Salentijn,Virginia Scotchie, Laura Spong and Paul Reed. The Fame Factor will explore the concept of fame, especially the relativity of fame.

The exhibition opens September 7 with a reception from 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. and runs through September 18. Opening hours for Gallery 80808/Vista Studios will be expanded during the if ART exhibition. They will be weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.; Sat., 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sun, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Other American artists with national and even international reputations in the show are Richard Hunt, Benny Andrews, Ibram Lassaw, Paul Reed, John Hultberg and Sam Middleton, an American artist who has lived in the Netherlands since the early 1960s. Dutch artists with international fame in addition to Appel and Van Velde will be Corneille, Ger Lataster, Hannes Postma, Kees Salentijn and Lucebert. Furthermore, the show will present French artist Jacques Doucet and Belgian artist Reinhoud.

Reinhoud and Doucet both were part of the legendary CoBrA group of Northern European artists from the late 1940s and 1950s, which also included Appel, Corneille and Lucebert. “CoBrA” stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the cities or origin of most of the major figures in the group. Another artist in the show, Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban artist who had a vast international reach, exhibited once with CoBrA, in the early 1950s, though he was not a member. All of these artists are in the collections of major American museums. Dutchman Salentijn works in a post-CoBrA style.

Hunt, Lassaw, Chadwick and Reinhoud are sculptors. All will be represented in the exhibition with limited-edition lithographs. Hunt, from Chicago, is one of the country’s most famous living sculptors, in part for his many public sculptures. Lassaw was one of the main sculptors in the New York School and a core figure on the city’s 1940s-1950s Abstract Expressionist scene. Chadwick is one of the most prominent figures among British sculptors of the generation of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

Sam Middleton, born in Harlem, NY, but living in the Netherlands, is known for his collages inspired by jazz; the exhibition will show some of his silkscreens. Lataster is one of the Netherlands’ most prominent Abstract-Expressionist painters; his work is in several major American museums. Postma established a big reputation in Europe in the 1960s with his etchings and aquatints, some of which will be in the show. Bram van Velde, who spent most of life and career in Paris, is a legendary figure among mid-20th-century European abstractionists.

Hultberg was part of the New York School scene but subsequently moved to California. Andrews was from Georgia but built his career in New York City, becoming one of the country’s most prominent African-American artists, who increasingly gained traction in the wider art community. Reed was with Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis and Gene Davis among the original Washington Color Field painters of the 1960s. Mitchell is simply one of the most famous Abstract-Expressionist painters.

Twiggs, from Orangeburg, S.C., most likely is the country’s most prominent pioneer with batik as a contemporary art medium. Scotchie is a ceramist with an international reputation who teaches at the University of South Carolina. Rice, from North Augusta, S.C., is represented in many museums in the Southeast. Spong’s reputation has grown by leaps in recent years and is now among South Carolina’s best-known abstract painters.

“The idea of the show is to explore how relative fame is,” if ART Wim Roefs said. “Several feet worth of books and catalogues on Appel, and a few feet on Mitchell, don’t change the fact that among people attending this show, Laura Spong is probably better known – and she makes do with a single 32-page catalogue. Leo Twiggs also is better known here than Appel and Mitchell. Someone like Van Velde is legendary in Europe. Though he had New York gallery shows in the United States, and though his work is in many major American museums, he is at best obscure around here. In general, of course, a lot of famous European artists aren’t well-known in the United States.”

“Lassaw really was one of the major sculptors among Abstract Expressionists, but, of course, sculptors, except for David Smith, played third fiddle in the movement compared to the painters. Reed was one of six artists in the first nationally traveling exhibition of Washington Color Field painters, with Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, and he makes the art-history books. Still, he’s mainly known among art insiders, though the renewed recent appreciation of color-field painting has giving him new exposure, too.”

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Flag Series

Flag (Jazz), 2002, batik on cotton, 36 x 48 in., $25,000/SOLD

Flag Crossing, 2016, batik on cotton,
16 1/2 x 10 1/2 in., $7,200

Old Flag Crossing, 2016, batik on cotton,
24 x 18 in., $15,000

Monday, January 23, 2006

Leo Twiggs: Toward Another Retrospective: March 3-14, 2006

if ART, International Fine Art Services

Columbia, S.C.

presents at

Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C.

LEO TWIGGS:

Toward Another Retrospective

March 3 – 14, 2006

Artist’s Reception:

Friday, March 3, 5 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sunday, 1 – 5 p.m.

Weekdays, 12 – 7 p.m. and by appointment

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:

(803) 238-2351 – (803) 799-7170 – wroefs@sc.rr.com

While Leo Twiggs’ retrospective exhibition is on view at the South Carolina State Museum, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will present Twiggs’ first solo gallery show in Columbia, S.C. The if ART exhibition, Leo Twiggs: Toward Another Retrospective, will take place March 3 – 14, 2006, at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios on Lady Street in Columbia’s downtown Vista district. It will present new paintings by Twiggs from the past year. The artist’s reception is March 3, 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.; weekdays, noon – 7:00 p.m.; and by appointment. For an appointment, call Wim Roefs at if ART at (803) 238-2351.

“Leo Twiggs is one of the giants of South Carolina art in the past four decades,” said Wim Roefs, owner of if ART. “He’s one of the state’s most important artists, and one of the few state artists with a truly national reputation. He’s also been one of South Carolina’s most important art educators. As a professor and art department head at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, he taught the majority of African-American art teachers working in this state. And Twiggs has been a major presence on art-related boards, committees and commissions in South Carolina, on any level.”

In 1981, Twiggs was the first to receive as an individual South Carolina’s highest art award, the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts. In 1970, he was the first African American to get an Ed.D. in art education from the University of Georgia. Twiggs is generally considered one of the most innovative batik artists in the county and the pioneer in developing batik as a modern art medium. His retrospective, Myths and Metaphors: The Art of Leo Twiggs, was organized by the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga. After a two-year tour, the exhibition has it last stop at the State Museum.

Twiggs, who retired from S.C. State in 1998, was born in 1934 and raised in rural St. Stephen, S.C. His art is about subjects, issues and people from or close to his Southern upbringing and countryside home. But through familiar specifics, Twiggs addresses broader themes, be it black culture, including the blues, the relationship between generations, religion and spirituality, or the South’s lingering Confederate mindset.

Twiggs is “an American original,” art historian Frank Martin argued in his contribution to the Myths and Metaphors exhibition catalogue. He makes “formal and aesthetic contributions unlike those of any other American painter.” Twiggs, Martin wrote, has “an uncanny ability to reconcile a multiplicity of cultural traditions with integrity, while simultaneously offering insightful commentary regarding aesthetic, ethical, and social issues that are translated, with understated power, through his unique experience.”

Twiggs began to experiment with batik in the mid-1960s. Already in 1972, the catalogue for an exhibition at Southern Illinois University said that “his name and the medium of batik seem almost synonymous.” There and at several other 1970s exhibitions, Twiggs shared the stage with a virtual who’s who of African-American art, including Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Richmond Barthe, John Biggers, Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff. Woodruff had been his teacher at New York University in the early 1960s. During the 1970s, Twiggs was included in books on African-American art by J. Edgar Atkinson, Samella Lewis and Elton Fax. He had solo museum exhibitions at North Carolina’s Asheville Museum, the Schenectady Museum in the state of New York, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“In a single work,” wrote Martin, who teaches at S.C. State, “Twiggs may present Southern regional themes, allude to a realm of intuition, magic, and traditional African religious elements, offer autobiographical information, and evoke, without effort, an aesthetic linkage to the most advanced aspects of Abstract Expressionism.”