Celebrating Our 40-Year Visual Arts Legacy

Overview

The Harvey B. Gantt Center commemorates our 40th Anniversary with three exhibitions that showcase the Center’s role in shaping people and ideas over four decades. 

40 and Counting: Celebrating Forty Years at the Gantt Center Through Art, Culture, and Community

The Harvey B. Gantt Center has mounted well over 100 exhibitions showcasing the work of more than 300 local, national and internationally renowned artists.  Featured in 40 and Counting are works presented previously in sixteen very different exhibitions and includes paintings, works on paper, sculpture, African art, textiles, photography and even public art.  The varied artworks are just a sample offering and provide a tantalizing glimpse into the past. Kim Curry-Evans served as Guest Curator.

Selected Works of J. Eugene Grigsby, Jr.: Returning to Where the Artistic Seed was Planted

Born in Greensboro in 1918 but raised in Charlotte, Jefferson Eugene Grigsby, Jr. was a shining example of a modern day renaissance man.  He was an artist, a teacher, a published writer, a lecturer and a band leader.  This retrospective of 30 works offers a glimpse into one aspect of Grigsby’s creative genius – his paintings – and traces them back to their origins.   It becomes apparent that as his understanding of the world evolved, Grigsby moved from simply depicting his surroundings to attempting to influence them.  

Highlights from the John & Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art

For more than 50 years, John and Vivian Hewitt visited galleries, artists’ studios and exhibitions, collecting hundreds of paintings, etchings, lithographs, collages and sketches.  This assemblage of fifty-eight works – generously donated by Bank of America Corporation – celebrates the expression and passion of twenty master artists and has become the cornerstone of the Gantt Center’s permanent collection.