Arts

Grace Moore, popular soprano in opera, musical comedy, and film, was born December 6, 1901, in Slabtown, Cocke County, and christened Mary Willie Grace. She spent her youth in Jellico, where she sang in her church choir. After studying briefly…

The South was considered a cultural backwater in the 1920s. It lagged behind the rest of the nation economically, and there was scant opportunity to enjoy the arts. There were no important museums, symphonies, galleries, or opera companies. Nashville prospered…

The Nashville Film Festival was born in 1969 of a utopian idea: to create a forum for small, independent films shown in a community setting. The festival was founded on a farm in East Tennessee by Mary Jane Coleman, who…

This Memphis craft art and design art institution, dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and preservation of fine metalwork, opened in 1979. The site was formerly a part of the U.S. Marine Hospital, which dated to the late nineteenth century with…

What began as a small gathering of Appalachian storytellers has evolved over a generation into one of the nation's premier gatherings of storytellers. The National Storytelling Festival, held every October in Jonesborough, is the most prestigious storytelling festival in the…

Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal was raised in Knoxville, where she studied theatre and performed in various venues. In 1942, following her junior year of high school, Neal landed a summer stock position at Robert Porterfield's Barter Theatre in Abingdon,…

Prominent nineteenth-century portraitist and figurative painter Robert L. Newman was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second child and only son of Robert L. Newman and Sarah J. Matthews. Newman's father died when he was young, and the family moved to…

Willie Betty Newman, a key figure in the state's art community at the turn of the century, was born on the Benjamin Rucker plantation near Murfreesboro, the daughter of Colonel William Francis Betty and Sophie Rucker Betty. She attended Soule…

Although Tennessee furniture has been an overlooked and forgotten regional treasure, the simple and straightforward functional pieces produced by Tennessee craftsmen before 1850 reflect an era of outstanding craftsmanship. The furniture of this period exhibits dignity and worth of material…

Born in Nashville, Anne Champe Orr became widely known at home and abroad for the published needlework patterns she began producing in 1915. A lifelong resident of Nashville, she studied with Nashville artist Sara Ward Conley, also briefly pursuing her…

Bettie Page has been immortalized in bronze sculpture, song lyrics, paintings, comic books, and enough tattoo ink to flood a swimming pool. As the many tributes testify, the Nashville native reigns as an American pop culture icon. The 1950s pinup…

Acclaimed metalsmith and jewelry designer, Earl Pardon was a major contributor to the rise of American studio jewelry in the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Memphis in 1926, Pardon served in World War II and then attended…

The Pi Beta Phi Settlement School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is one of the best extant examples of the early twentieth-century settlement school movement. The school’s origins date to 1910, when Pi Beta Phi, the first women’s fraternity, which was founded…

The manufacturing of pottery has occurred throughout Tennessee during much of its history, but records are nonexistent until the 1820 manufacturing census, which listed eight potteries, all in East Tennessee. Isaac Hart and John Mathorn (later Mottern) produced earthenware in…

In 1979 a caver exploring a narrow subterranean passageway in southeastern Tennessee noticed scratches and lines in mudbanks that lined the cave walls. He reported the marks to Charles Faulkner of the University of Tennessee, who identified them as prehistoric…

Art in its broadest definition is patterned application of human skill that evokes a feeling of aesthetic sensibility. As such, art is a universal of human culture and can be traced archaeologically to at least forty thousand years ago. Art…

More than seven thousand deep caves have been recorded throughout Tennessee. Concentrated in the limestone uplands of Middle and East Tennessee, these karsts extend from the Mammoth Cave area of central Kentucky through Tennessee into northern Alabama, and they represent…

Elvis. The first name alone invokes images and sounds which spark instant recognition. While he may not have invented rock-n-roll, few can deny that Elvis Presley helped transform a musical fad into a national and international phenomenon. In the process,…

Immortalized by three screen portrayals of his career, Walking Tall (1973), Walking Tall II (1976), and Walking Tall III: The Final Chapter (1977), McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser earned a reputation as a hard-nosed, no nonsense law officer who settled…

Quiltmaking has been a form of needlework enjoyed by generations of Tennessee women--and men--from the first settlers' arrival to the present day. The earliest quilts, made when fabric was scarce and expensive, graced the homes of affluent families. Blankets, bed…