MCC’s Casteel Gallery to open new season with ‘Works Around Here’ exhibition
Meridian Community College’s Casteel Gallery will open its 2024-25 season with a show highlighting the talent of Southern artists, drawn from one person’s decades-long passion for collecting.
The exhibition, Works Around Here: Southern Artworks from a Private Collection, opens with a reception from 3-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, in the Casteel Gallery,
located in the Davidson Fine Arts Center in Ivy-Scaggs Hall. Admission is free, and
the public is invited to attend.
The collection reflects over 50 years of art collecting, beginning with the owner's purchase of a small painting for $5 at a University of Mississippi student art show in 1967. Although that first piece is gone, the collector’s interest grew into a lifelong pursuit, especially after beginning a teaching career at Meridian Junior College in the early 1970s.
Over the years, the collector acquired works by many well-known Mississippi artists, including Homer Casteel, Alex and Jean Loeb, Eloise McClelland, Bill Watkins, Norma Bordeaux, Clo Ann Rabb, Mildred Keens, and Cornelia Mitchell. The collection also includes pieces by Marie Hull, Alvin Sella, Lou Keen O’Leary, Joey Horne, Lallah Perry, Millie Howell, Benjamin Howell, Richard Kelso, Les Green, and Andrew Bucci.
The exhibit also features works from self-taught artists such as Mary T. Smith, Eula Crabtree, Tina “Tiny” Mason, James Harold Jennings, David Butler, Clementine Hunter, Henry Speller, Larry C. Williams, and Howard Finster, along with pieces from anonymous and unidentified creators.
The exhibition’s title came from a conversation the collector had with a repair worker, who, noticing the many art pieces in the home, asked if they were “all painted around here.” The question sparked the idea for a show celebrating Southern artists with ties to Mississippi.
“Collecting has been a labor of love,” the collector said. From arrowheads found as a child in north Mississippi to marbles from the school playground, the collector has been drawn to things with history and beauty.
The show will be on display through Sept. 18.
The Casteel Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and by appointment by emailing ttaylor@meridiancc.edu.
For more information, visit meridiancc.edu/casteelgallery.