Alfred Hutty was born in Grand Haven, Michigan; studied at St. Louis School of Fine Arts; moved to Woodstock, NY in 1907. While in Woodstock, Hutty studied under Birge Harrison, at the Art Students League, and he worked as a stained glass designer for Tiffany Studios. Primarily an oil and watercolor artist, Hutty did not seriously take up etching until he took residence in Charleston in 1919. He quickly absorbed the energy and atmosphere of the city, which inspired much of the art he later became famous for. Shortly after his arrival in Charleston, Hutty served as the first director of the School of the Carolina Art Association. In 1923, a mixed group of nine local artists, which included Hutty, founded the Charleston Etchers Club. It was Hutty who helped the club acquire their own etching press, which they set up at the Charleston Museum. Having the personal endorsement of an artist of Hutty’s pedigree helped bring legitimacy to Charleston as a bona fide destination capable of sustaining a community worthy of the accomplished artist.

Another prominent artist involved with Charleston Etchers Club was Alice Ravenel Huger Smith. Alice Smith was born in Charleston South Carolina in 1876. During her early years she studied with Louise Fery at the Carolina Art Association. In 1908, Smith had the fortune of befriending noted Tonalist painter, Birge Harrison. Harrison, the director of the respected Art Student Leagues in Woodstock, New York, had been inspired to visit Charleston by an article he read in Harper’s Monthly Magazine. Upon meeting Harrison, Smith offered Harrison space in her family home to serve as his makeshift studio during his winter visit to Charleston. Smith’s generosity served as a benefit, as Harrison offered her informal advice regarding her own work from time to time. Harrison’s influence is evident in Smith’s work with its infusion of Harrison’s lyrical tonal style. Smith became an influential personality in the local art community. She immersed herself in art galleries, magazines, local life which informed the course of her artistic career. Her major media were prints and watercolors but she also contributed illustrations to such books as: “The Dwelling Houses of Charleston, South Carolina”, “A Woman Rice Planter”, & “A Charleston Sketchbook”.

Where Smith’s work is often described as distinctly indigenous to the region, Anna Heyward Taylor brought the graphic sensibilities of the outside world to her printmaking. Although she worked in oil, watercolor and textiles, her favorite medium was printmaking. Taylor was born in Columbia, South Carolina where she also graduated from the South Carolina College for Women. After which she studied with William Merritt Chase in Europe, and to Provincetown, Massachusetts where she studied the Provincetown Print with B.F.O. Nordfeldt. In 1916, Taylor joined an expedition to British Guiana where she conducted floral studies that were later translated into prints. Taylor didn’t return to South Carolina until 1929 when she took residence in Charleston. Here her career thrived while her work did a great deal to promote the allure of the city through the circulation of her illustrated publication, “This Our Land” and the sale of her woodblock prints that documented low country nature and Charleston’s women flower vendors.

Elizabeth O’Neill Verner like Alice Smith was a native of Charleston. Having study under the tutelage of Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts during her early years, Verner was an amateur artist at the time of the unexpected death of her husband. It was this event that served as the catalyst for her development into one of Charleston’s most prolific artists. In 1925 at the age of 42, the widowed Verner understood that she was now the sole means of provision for her two teenage children. As an amateur artist, Verner had been one of the founding members of the Charleston Etchers Club. Verner approached Smith, her friend & mentor, and asked her for guidance in honing her craft so that she could support her family. With contemporaries like Alice Smith and Alfred Hutty, it is no surprise that Verner’s medium of choice was printmaking although later in her career she adopted pastels. Verner’s work is characterized by an ability to imbue Charleston’s native essence into her portrayals of the city that is distinctly identifiable to the local. Verner, like her contemporaries, made use of the vehicle of publication for the distribution of her etchings (e.g. books such as “Prints and Impressions of Charleston” & “Mellowed by Time”).

An ad in the Marion Star Newspaper dated February 22, 1853 documents the use of a Florence station by the W&MRR.

A detail from the 1854 Colton’s map of South Carolina shows the location of the plantation of C.A. Dargan at the Junction of Ebenezer Road and Jefferies Creek. This location fits the description given in the Sleepy Hollow Hotel Ad. This map also shows the location of station named Florence at the intersection of the W&MRR and Hoffmeyer Road.

Little is documented about the childhood of African-American artist, William Henry Johnson. The years of Johnson’s childhood (1901-1918) were spent here in city of Florence, South Carolina. During these years Florence experienced notable economic growth thanks to the Atlantic Coastline Railroad, a railroad conglomerate that owned a network of roads that spanned along the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida. The ACL’s presence in Florence served as an economic backbone during the turn of the century. The Johnson family was one of many families that benefited from the railroad’s presence. In 1911, The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad funded the construction of a fifty thousand dollar YMCA building to provide a place of recreation for its employees and the community. Alice Johnson, who formerly worked as a domestic, took a job as a cook at the new YMCA. Located at the intersection of Day Street and N. Ravenel Street, the large brick building included an auditorium, kitchen, gymnasium, bowling alley, baths, study rooms, and sleeping quarters.

Not only did young William’s mother work at the YMCA, William did as well. Willie earned money in the YMCA’s bowling alley by fetching and setting up pins during bowling games. William also earned money at the local ACL train yard by running errands for the engineers while the scheduled trains made their transfer of passengers and freight. During the years of Johnson’s childhood, Florence’s railroad experienced tremendous growth. The group of Baltimore financiers who owned the Atlantic Coastline Railroad saw good reason to give attention to their operations in Florence, as the city had become known as the “Gate City” of the railroad to the south. Over the decade of 1906-1916, the ACL expanded their shops at Florence to include a large new roundhouse, a new passenger station, & a variety of new maintenance buildings, as well as a vast expansion of track to their freight yard. The teenage William H. Johnson was witness to the transformation and growth of Florence’s railroad industry.

Charleston’s unanswered railroad dominance in the state would prove to be short lived. In 1846, Wilmington North Carolina, another depressed port city, entered the picture. The city of Wilmington had successfully lobbied for legislature in both North Carolina and South Carolina that chartered a new railroad company called the Wilmington & Manchester Rail Road Company. Construction began almost immediately to connect the 162 miles between the eastern port terminus of Wilmington N.C. to the western terminus of Manchester S.C. The village of Manchester was chosen as the western terminus for its proximity to the South Carolina Rail Road Company’s Branchville & Columbia line. It was the intention of the city of Wilmington to bypass Charleston and establish itself as the chief city of export for the northeastern region of South Carolina. The W&MRR was the first railroad present in South Carolina’s northeastern Pee Dee region, and it was also the first present of the three railroads that would eventually lead to the development of the village of Florence, South Carolina.

Florence native William Henry Johnson, although considered by academics to be a major figure in 20th century American Art, has somehow remained a relatively obscure figure to his hometown community. Over the course of his career, the output of William H. Johnson’s significant work numbered into the thousands. A little over 1500 known works whose whereabouts have been accounted for. His large body of work displays a virtuosic talent mastering a variety of mediums & styles while maintaining a powerful execution of unified expression. Behind the man’s fascinating body of work, lies a story that rivals the intrigue and complexity of his art. So how is it that this prolific artist continues to remain an unrecognized figure by the city that helped birth him? This is not an easy question to answer definitively. For starters, we must 1st understand not only Johnson, the man & his work, but also the historical context in which his story takes place. After we have a grasped an understanding of Johnson, we must also begin to grasp a thorough understanding of the city and people of Florence.

On October 11, the Florence Museum hosted the opening reception for this year’s annual Pee Dee Regional Art Competition, the longest running art competition in the state of South Carolina.

First place in this year’s competition was awarded to Mike and Patz Fowle of Hartsville for their metal sculpture, Armor-dillo.

The other award winners include second-place intaglio print by Treelee MacAnn titled Mother’s Gown and third place, Tree Lady I, by Florence artist, Carolyn Jebaily. Three honorable mentions were awarded to pieces by Howard Frye, Caitlin Johnson and Adrian Rhodes. Each year attendees at the exhibit’s opening reception vote for the People’s Choice Award. This year’s award was won by Blue & White Life, a ceramic and glass piece by Hayley Douglas.

It is an honor and a pleasure for me to serve as juror for the 2012 Pee Dee Regional Competition at the Florence Museum. As a native South Carolina, I am pleased to see continued art interest through all regions of the state.

In making my selections for the 2012 exhibition I noted works with visual impact that included intrigue, mystery, satisfaction, tension, discomfort, challenge or surprise. Execution and craftsmanship are integral to the analysis process, along with the content, subject matter, originality, innovation and personal expression. It is a pleasure to see ordinary materials redefined and elevated and I admire conventional techniques mastered & filtered through the artist’s perspective.

First place, Armor-dillo, by Mike and Patz Fowle, was a delightful use of found materials. Moving up to the piece the viewer begins to recognize detritus that includes a license plate, a bicycle chain, a caster-foot, and a flattened garden trowel-rake for a paw. Very expressive and raw, but also very intentional.

At times, the museum inherits a work of art that isn’t in stable condition for exhibit. This could not have been more apparent when the museum acquired an untitled landscape oil painting, by Swiss painter Franz Knebel Jr. (1809-1877). The work was in a critical state: the frame was structurally unsound, the canvas was falling from the stretcher, the paint had become extremely dried & cracked resulting in some paint loss, the canvas had suffered from multiple tears, etc… Perhaps what was most disheartening was that at some point in its history, in attempt to care for the painting, it had been covered with varnish with the intention of “perserving” its integrity. Overtime, this extra layer of varnish darkened and discolored making difficult for the viewer to identify parts of the composition. Even though the painting was but of a shadow of its former glory, it was still visible that this was a great example of a 19th century European oil landscape.

In February of 2011, the Trustees of the Florence Museum took the painting to ReNewell Inc: Fine Art Conservation in Columbia SC. ReNewell Inc. specializes in the treatment and preservation of 18th and 19th century oil paintings and works of art on paper. ReNewell teaches that conservation is the preventative maintenance of protecting art through proper storage and a stable environment, restoration is the treatment needed to repair art after the damage has already occurred. The museum’s painting was in dire need of the latter.

“Morning Story” was a Museum purchase as First Place ($1,000 Museum Purchase Award) in the Twenty-Fourth Guild of South Carolina Artists Exhibition held from November 10, to December 5, 1974. The museum made a nice poster with “Morning Story” reproduced on one side and an exhibition/awards list on the other side.

In the preface of the book, “Philip Mullen 1994-2008″ David Houston says this concerning the artist’s early work: