Arts

African American decorative arts embrace many forms, from the practical utility of bed quilts and baskets to the traditional crafts of blacksmithing and wood carving to the skill in design and construction of residential architecture or boat building. Whether the…

The early decorative arts of Appalachia were the hand-pieced quilts, handwoven coverlets, split oak egg baskets, and other "necessary" crafts once common to every remote household. In the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee, art was often the result of need.…

Tennessee, which until recently was rural, egalitarian, and lacking in concentrated wealth, never has been a center of art patronage or production. The first generation of pioneers lacked both time and money for art, and there is hardly any documentation…

Basket weaving is one of the most ancient of all arts, the spontaneous invention of people in all parts of the globe. As white explorers moved into the area that would become Tennessee, they found that Native Americans substituted baskets…

Few widely recognized, successful women on television and in film have built an acting career without an “ingénue phase,” which fits snuggly between an actress’s late teens and mid-twenties when she must capitalize on her looks before she expires--like a…

As Hollywood produced some of its best films and secured its place internationally as the mecca of movie-making, the Memphis Board of Censors gained nationwide notoriety for its draconian brand of censorship. Founded in 1911 by Mayor E. H. Crump,…

Artist Lloyd Branson was born in Union County in 1854 and spent his life in the Knoxville area. In 1871, at age seventeen, he exhibited at the East Tennessee Division Fair and received favorable notice. As a result, Branson moved…

Clarence Brown, film producer and director, was born May 10, 1890, in Clinton, Massachusetts. Brown took a double degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1910 and began his career as an automobile dealer in…

Born in 1907 in Terre Haute, Indiana, Burton Callicott spent much his of childhood and his seventy-year career as an artist and educator in Memphis. Callicott graduated in 1931 from the Cleveland School of Art, where he began an exploration…

Brothers Ebenezer and Peter Ross Calvert were successful photographers and painters in Nashville at the turn of the century. Both were born in Yorkshire, England, near Leeds, and studied art there before arriving in Nashville in the 1870s. The Calvert…

James Cameron, portrait and landscape painter, was born in Grennock, Scotland. He came to Philadelphia with his family about 1833. When he was twenty-two, he moved to Indianapolis to become a portraitist, but he was back in Philadelphia by 1847.…

Artist Kate Augusta Carl is best known for her portrait of Tzu Hsi, the last Empress Dowager of China, painted for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Carl was born in New Orleans in 1854 and came to…

One of the most influential blues artists of the twentieth century, Leroy Carr was born in Nashville around 1905. Like many blues players of his era, Carr died a young man, but his imprint on American music is visible through his lasting…

Cheekwood was originally a monumental country estate designed by leading American landscape architect Bryant Fleming between 1929 and 1932 for the family of Leslie Cheek. Cheek had made his fortune from his extended family's wholesale grocery and coffee-making businesses. Joel…

Reflecting the divided allegiances of Tennesseans during that great struggle, a number of memorials throughout the state, both Union and Confederate, honor participants in the Civil War. Despite some exceptions, most monuments are found in one of three localities: on…

Internationally recognized Life photographer Ed Clark was born in Nashville in 1911. Pursuing an early interest in photography, Clark dropped out of Hume-Fogg High School to work as a photographer's assistant at the Nashville Tennessean. For thirteen years he served…

Artist Carroll Cloar was born in Earle, Arkansas, on January 18, 1913. His childhood memories of his birthplace defined his art during the latter part of his career and gained him national recognition. Flat color forms and decorative patterning are…

Fred Coe, leading producer and director during the "golden age of television" of the 1950s, was born in Mississippi but raised in Nashville, and he called Tennessee home. Nurtured in the arts and theatre at Peabody Demonstration School, Coe began…

Sara Ward Conley, noted Nashville artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was born on December 21, 1859, to Dr. William and Eliza Ward. Following an education at Nashville's Ward Seminary (a school for young women founded by…