Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Visit to Toshiko Takaezu

Among the litany of tasks during a recent trip to the New York City area for (the museum's director) Bill Eiland, (assistant director) Annelies Mondi, and yours truly was a visit to the (very rural) New Jersey home and studio of Toshiko Takaezu.

Ms. Takaezu very generously donated several of her own works of art to the Georgia Museum of Art.

A few pictures from the visit:





Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Medal

Bronze, to be exact.

The Georgia Museum of Art just won an award for the catalogue for Amazing Grace: Self-Taught Artists from the Mullis Collection.

The award? A bronze medal in the 12th Annual IPPY Awards presented by Independent Publisher.


From their site: "As our contest motto, "Recognizing Excellence in Independent Publishing" implies, here is a list of 450 excellent books -- the best independently published books of the past year -- in 64 national categories, ten Outstanding Book of the Year categories, and 20 Best Regional Fiction and Non-Fiction categories. ...This year's contest attracted 3,175 total entries, with over 2,500 entries in the national categories and over 600 entries in the regional competition. Books came from 49 U.S. states (come on, North Dakota!), D.C., and U.S. Virgin Islands; 9 Canadian provinces (get with it, Northwest Territories!), and 16 countries around the world: Trinidad to Thailand, Croatia to Czech Republic, and France to Finland. It's been a priviledge to judge such a large and wonderfully eclectic collection of books. ...We were impressed with...the breathtaking artwork and photography in our fine arts and coffee table book entries."

Amazing Grace, now an award-winning catalogue, was produced in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the museum Sept. 29, 2007 to Jan. 6, 2008. The hardcover 12-by-12-inch exhibition catalogue features full-page color illustrations of all 90 works in that exhibition, organized by Paul Manoguerra, curator of American art at the Georgia Museum of Art, as well as essays by Carl Mullis, the collector, and Carol Crown, professor of art history at the University of Memphis. Biographies of all the artists, from Howard Finster and R.A. Miller to Sister Gertrude Morgan and Mary T. Smith, by Manoguerra, follow the exhibition catalogue section.