Greenville Museum Unveils Historic View of Greenville

The fundraising organization for the Greenville County Museum of Art has endorsed a campaign to pay for an important new collection of nineteenth-century paintings, including a the first known painting of the Reedy River Falls, the historic birthplace of Greenville.

On February 5, The Museum Association, Inc., unanimously approved a three-year commitment to dedicate funds from the annual Museum Antiques Show to the acquisition of a series of Southern landscapes by Joshua Shaw (1776-1860), a British-born painter whose work is owned by only a few American museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Greenville County Museum Commission has already approved the acquisition.

Shaw achieved critical acclaim and some popular success in England, painting landscapes in the “picturesque” style, characterized by an idealized approach to composition. His first foray in the New World came as a favor to American expatriate Benjamin West, who asked Shaw to oversee the installation of one of his paintings in Philadelphia. Shaw decided to remain in America, in part to secure a patent for his invention of a percussion cap for firearms. He took up residence in Philadelphia and began producing a series of American landscapes in collaboration with John Hill, who was a master of the aquatint technique of printmaking.

Shaw traveled through New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, then headed south through the Carolinas to Charleston and Savannah. He painted iconic scenes in oil on prepared paper and canvas, returning them to Hill in Philadelphia to be reproduced as hand-colored engravings. Journeying north through Augusta and the western portions of South Carolina, Shaw was on his way to Table Rock when he discovered Greenville.

“The picturesque was unlooked for,” the artist admitted in a journal that recorded his trip. He found “the situation pleasant and the air cool and extremely salubrious.” He made several sketches in the area, focusing special attention on the Reedy River Falls. Shaw’s painting depicts the falls from above, looking downstream: it records in exacting detail the rock formations that frame the upper falls today. The artist took some artistic license with his landscape, however, placing the distant shadow of the Appalachians downriver from the falls.

While the Reedy River Falls painting offers a special attraction for Greenville, the Museum has also acquired such scenes as Jefferson Rock and Natural Bridge in Virginia, as well as a lush and captivating landscape along the Catawba River in South Carolina. Accompanying engravings include one depicting the 1820 burning of Savannah and one of Washington’s tomb.

“These works tell the story of Shaw’s pioneering effort to illustrate and promote the beauty and grandeur of the southern American frontier,” said Museum Executive Director Thomas W. Styron. “It is a particular point of pride that this first proper depiction of Greenville’s birthplace links to sites that are icons of American topography, woven by the artist’s commentary into the fabric of a young nation.”

The Museum Association has committed to raise $1.2 million over three years to complete the acquisition of the Shaw paintings. Businesses and individuals support the Museum by making contributions through the Museum’s Antiques Show. The 2008 show, which takes place October 17-19, will also fund acquisition of Jasper Johns’ The Seasons (Fall), 1987, a key addition to the Museum’s survey of the world’s greatest living artist.

The Museum has announced a three-week preview of the Shaw paintings, from February 13 to March 2, 2008. The exhibition Joshua Shaw: A Paradise of Riches opens April 2 and continues through September 28, 2008. A gallery talk is set for Sunday, April 6, at 2:00 pm.

The Greenville County Museum of Art is located at 420 College Street in Greenville, South Carolina. The Museum opens at 11 Tuesday through Saturday and at 1:00 on Sunday. Galleries close at 5 except on Thursdays, when the Museum is open until 8:00. The Museum is closed on Mondays and major holidays. Admission is always absolutely free.