Fine Arts
Memphis has also had a significant impact in the world of photography. William Eggleston, the pioneer of color photography as a serious artistic medium and considered one of the greatest photographers of all time, still lives and works in Memphis. A number of younger photographers, including Jeanne Umbreit and Huger Foote, are Memphians. Some other notable Memphis photographers were fashion/celebrity photographer Jack Robinson and civil rights-era documenter Ernest C. Withers.
In the last two decades, the art scene in Memphis has exploded. Art galleries were first established at Overton Square but have moved farther east. The independent art scene has had some success on South Main, on the trolley line in downtown Memphis. Several art galleries have moved into the neighborhood, stimulating a real estate boom that expanded into new residential construction. One interesting conversion was the Power House, a former power plant near Central Station that was transformed into contemporary art space by Delta Axis, a Memphis contemporary arts organization. The Power House closed in August 2009, citing economic concerns.
The Cooper-Young neighborhood in Midtown Memphis has also been home to several art galleries. The Edge is an art studio neighborhood, located at the edge of downtown near Madison Avenue, Marshall, and Union Avenue. The Edge is home to Memphis' Black Repertory Theater, world-famous Sun Studios, and Delta Axis, among others. The old commercial strip on Broad Avenue in the Binghampton area is home to a cluster of artists and craftsmen.
Quality commercial art galleries in the east Memphis area include the David Lusk Gallery, Perry Nicole Gallery, L Ross Gallery and Lisa Kurts Gallery. All are on or near Poplar Ave., the main east-west thoroughfare. The Memphis College of Art and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art are neighbors inside Overton Park, along with The Shell, a 1930s outdoor performing arts venue recently renovated and reopened in September 2008.
More informally, art intersects with entrepreneurship in many traditionally African American neighborhoods through hand-painted signs. Artists like James "Brick" Brigance, an Orange Mound native, paints lettering, logos and images on the brick facades of many neighborhood buildings.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Memphis, Tennessee, Music and The Arts
Famous quotes containing the words fine and/or arts:
“The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)