The Murphys of Savannah
Over the years, Savannah, Georgia, has enjoyed a reputation as an unusually vibrant center for the visual arts, a reputation that has resulted from a large and active community of artists. Christopher P. H. Murphy, his wife Lucile Desbouillons Murphy, and two of their seven children, Christopher A. D. Murphy and his sister Margaret, were central figures in the cultural…
Mildred Weigle Nix Huie
A native of Augusta, artist Mildred Nix Huie (1906–2000) had an affinity for art, history, and literature her entire life. (Her maternal grandfather was John Michael Weigle, a managing editor of the Augusta Chronicle, and she lived next door to Johnny Mercer in Savannah, Georgia.) Huie attended Shorter College (now University) in Rome, Georgia, and graduated from Florida State College…
Linda Fantuzzo: Penumbra
Charleston, South Carolina, artist Linda Fantuzzo began painting at age twelve. She studied painting and graphics at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1968 to 1973 before moving to Charleston, where she set up a studio in 1974. She was influenced to do so by fellow graduate student Manning Williams, a native Charlestonian who was already…
Jack Island Trials
In the 1970s and 1980s, the paintings of Manning Williams depicted Charleston city scenes, suburban landscapes, roadways, friends, and family. As David Houston writes in Manning Williams: Reinventing Narrative Painting, that “body of work . . . may be understood as narratives of a larger community in the context of place and time” (page x). Among these paintings is one…