Morris Museum of Art
Augusta, Georgia
706-724-7501
Myth, Memory, and Imagination, Photographs from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell
Photographs of sharecroppers, country churches, river baptisms, and other classic images of the rural South will be featured in a new exhibition, "Myth, Memory, and Imagination, Photographs from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell," at the Morris Museum of Art from November 16 through December 31, 2000.
The
exhibition will be opened November 16 with a reception at 6:00 P.M., followed
by a lecture by Ms. Norrell, a Washington, D. C., collector, and Jay Williams,
curator of the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, which
organized the nationally traveling exhibition. The reception and lecture
will be free and open to the public. (left: Deborah Luster, Septima
with Tadpoles)
The photographs represent regional perspectives on family and community relationships, important rituals at life passage points, racial relationships, and the region's struggle with poverty. Artists featured include Ansel Adams, William Christenberry, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Ben Shahn Eudora Welty, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Deborah Luster, and others.
Ms.
Norrell, an Arkansas native, developed a love for art as a young student.
She began collecting during her early study in India as a Fulbright Scholar
and while attending George Washington University Law School. During the
course of her professional career, Ms. Norrell traveled extensively within
the United States and internationally, visiting museums, cultural centers,
galleries, and artists' studios. Her interests encompass a variety of media,
including folk art, painting, and sculpture, as well as photography. (left:
Esther Bubley, Baptism, Tumball, Texas)
In her essay, "Going Home to Get my Tombstone,"
included in the exhibition catalogue published by the McKissick Museum,
University of South Carolina, Ms. Norrell describes herself as "one
of those Southerners who loved the South but hated the irrationality, hated
the cruelty, hated the ignorance disguised by 
arrogance, hated the hate." In the same essay,
she says the collection is "about the search for meaning in a changing
South . . . it is about love of place, family, and friends. (left:
Gordon Parks, Dirt Road Near Paoli)
"Myth, Memory, and Imagination, Photographs from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell" is drawn from a larger nationally traveling exhibition organized and circulated by the McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina.
Read more in Resource Library Magazine about the Morris Museum of Art.
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 4/6/11
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