Local Art Museum Showcases “25 Years of Jonathan Green”
By Christina Knauss
Twenty-one works by Jonathan Green, one of the most popular artists to come out of South Carolina, have now found a permanent home in Myrtle Beach at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum.
"25 Years of Jonathan Green," which opened Sept. 5, is the premier exhibit for the Grace Martin Matlock Education Galleries, located on the museum's second level.
Green's works come from the Barbara Burgess and John Dinkelspiel Collection of Southern Art. The exhibit gives viewers a chance to see the evolution of Green's style over the years, from more abstract pieces done in the early and mid-80s to the vibrant, evocative lithographs and oil paintings of his later years.
The exhibit's official opening was held Sept. 13 at the museum, and more than 200 people attended, including Green himself, said Pat Goodwin, executive director of the museum.
Goodwin said Green's work, as well as other important works by contemporary Southern artists, were donated by Burgess and Dinkelspiel, natives of Boston who relocated to the Lowcountry in 1996. The two learned about the Myrtle Beach museum from Green, who also had a popular exhibit of his work there in 2003.
"They had been thinking about the idea of donating their collection of Southern art to a museum, and decided on us because of their interest in and respect for our educational programming," Goodwin said.
Green, a native of the rural Gardens Corner community near Beaufort, has become known nationwide and internationally for his images of the Gullah culture preserved in African-American communities in the Beaufort area and throughout the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia.
Green served in the U.S. Air Force and then studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he graduated in 1982 and then embarked on a full-time career in art.
His early works on display in the exhibit, such as "Chameleon I" and "Chameleon 2," and "Reflections on a Shadow," feature work in collage and pastel, and show Green's burgeoning interest in evoking African-American culture and history, although in a much more abstract, avant-garde style than he later adapted.
His later works, including the lovely "Sea Break," "Festival Time" and "Beach Ball," feature his signature figures in bright clothing and large hats, positioned in joyful poses against bright coastal backgrounds.
The exhibit also features images of Gullah people attending church, working together and praying together, all drawn from Green's childhood in Beaufort. Moodier, more spiritual pieces such as "The Gnostic" and "The Sentinel" are also featured.
Over the years, Green's paintings have made their way into museum collections in California, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Florida, Oregon and Germany, as well as his native South Carolina. His book, "Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green," is now in its third printing, and his work was celebrated in Charleston in 2008 with "Jonathan Green Week." He was also one of three African-American visual artists honored with a Key of Life Award during the 2009 NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles, and he has received the Order of the Palmetto, the highest honor given to a civilian in South Carolina.
In 2004, 22 of Green's paintings were brought to life on stage in Columbia through the medium of ballet, when the Columbia City Ballet offered William Starrett's "Off the Wall & Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green." His art has also inspired original jazz compositions and poetry.
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