Drawn from the permanent collection, the seventeen paintings in this exhibition—many rarely exhibited and more than a few never exhibited before—celebrate the everyday in their depiction of agriculture and the rural life it has supported from time immemorial throughout the American South. The predominance of agriculture within the economy of the region until recent times has played a significant role in defining the region’s evolving culture and its relationship with the world. Its largely temperate climate, abundant rainfall, network of rivers and streams, and rich soil have created a physical environment that has shaped agricultural practices. In the main, small farmers have been the stewards of that environment and the rural culture of the region. The industrialization of the South, particularly following World War II, remade the region’s agricultural life, making these works of art a kind of retrospective, if not romantic, view of a time lost.