Leggett Collection and other Highlights from the Brenau University Permanent Collection on View at Sellars Gallery in August 2023

View Brenau University’s Newest Acquisition of Works, The Leggett Collection, and other Highlights from the Brenau University Permanent Collection, August 17th – October 12th, 2023 at Sellars Gallery, Simmons Visual Art Center, Brenau University.

The Leggett Collection, donated by Robert and Dee Leggett, will be on view with other works highlighted from the Brenau University Permanent Collection, August 17th – October 12th, 2023 in Sellars Gallery at Simmons Visual Arts Center, Brenau University.

The  Leggett Collection consists of a powerful collection of oils, watercolors and pastel paintings rendered in a masterful realistic style. Each artist within the collection has won multiple awards and is widely collected. Artist’s such as Burt Silverman, who has shown his work throughout the United States and internationally, including, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Academy of Design Annual, the Mexico City Museum of Art, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Royal Academy in London, are among the artists in this impressive collection.

Silverman has paintings in major private and public collections including those of the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

 In the painting, Trattoria, by Burt Silverman, above, a dark haired man with a receding hairline sits alone on a wood chair at a table looking slightly to his left. His dark eyes set under dark brows stare ahead. His lips are closed. Light and shadow model his facial features. His hands sit on the table and fold over his crumpled napkin. A beaker–style glass of red wine sits in front of him, untouched. He is wearing a suit jacket and tie looking outward in deep thought. On the wall behind him are the bottom portions of pictures, their content hidden from the viewer by the boundaries of the composition. On the table, to his right, are a knife and fork place setting. To his left, in the background, is an empty a table with glasses and a flask.

Other works within the collection are by artists such as: Lucia de Leiris , Kate (Katherine) Doyle,  Jacqueline Gnott, Jeffrey Martin, Bobbie McKibbon, Roger Medearis, Jane Mihalik, and Dale Wilson Kennington.

Dale Wilson Kennington, originally from Georgia, but spending much of her life in Alabama, is known for her paintings depicting Southern traditions through settings and figures. Her paintings reflect the artist’s interpretations of social conventions. Her realistically portrayed figures are “types” that make up the communities she created in her works.

Kennington attended Huntingdon College in Birmingham, Alabama and the University of Alabama. After a hiatus from art, she returned to painting through portraiture; this led her to explore the figure and human interactions in her subject matter. From there she moved to portrayals of large–scale vignettes of real life, such as seen in the subject painting. Her work has been classified as “New American Realism” for its contemporary approach to the naturalistic depictions of figures and their various locations. 

Kennington’s paintings have been included in exhibitions at the National Women’s Museum, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Butler Museum of American Art, the Columbus Museum, the Huntsville Museum of Art, and the Mississippi Museum of Art, among others. Her work has also been included in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program.

In the front foreground of this interior setting is a round table covered with a cloth and set for tea with napkins, cups, and plates. A small vase of red flowers sits in the middle of the table. Two chairs with rounded backs are pushed under the table. The room includes several other tables, one being cleared by wait staff, another partially set in the center left and another in the back left with two women seated and in conversation. Lamps with lampshades are enclose both sides of the image. The artist uses a soft focus on all parts of the room and the figures. In the distance, there is even a less distinct focus on the trees and bushes outside the windows that extend across the back wall of the room.

The Leggett Collection will be open to view from 10-4 PM Monday – Thursday at Sellar’s Gallery August 17 – October 12th, 2023.

Free and Open to the Public.