June 01, 2022
In this ETV Classic, Spoleto in Retro, South Carolina ETV’s Beryl Dakers heads to Charleston, SC for the 25th anniversary of Spoleto Festival USA for SCETV's two-part special Spoleto in Retro. In part two, Dakers explores more of the disciplines featured in the festival's lineup: music and visual arts.
Surrounded by glorious chamber music, choral music, and Jazz, the visual arts section of this program starts at 29:21 and encompasses sculpture, installation art, site-specific art, as well as the graphic arts, which include those iconic festival posters! Works by Christian Thee, Lorna Simpson, Robert Courtright, Igor Mitoraj, and Louise Nevelson appear, among others. Learn more about these visual artists and the others in Side Notes. This is a rare jewel! What a collection of legends!
Side Notes
- Christian Thee - Christian Thee is a Columbia-based, master painter and scenic designer who wields his brush like a magician would a wand to paint alluring scenes that surpass simple illusion and entice the viewer to look ever more closely at his work.
- Lorna Simpson is an American photographer and multimedia artist whose works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 1990, she became one of the first African American women to exhibit at the Venice Biennale.
- 20th Century Sculpture at the White House. The idea for the White House sculpture exhibition began with the First Lady’s desire to focus official attention on America’s living artists.
- Robert Courtright - 1926-2012, Born in 1926 in South Carolina, Robert Courtright was a self-taught artist. Close to the artistic approaches of Arte Povera, he developed a unique body of work over more than five decades, appearing remarkably contemporary today. His work spans over five decades and he is known for his collages and masks.
- Martha Jackson Jarvis (born 1952) is an American artist known for her mixed-media installations that explore aspects of African, African American, and Native American spirituality, ecological concerns, and the role of women in preserving indigenous cultures.
- Igor Mitoraj - March 26,1944 – October 6, 2014 was a Polish artist and monumental sculptor. Known for his fragmented sculptures of the human body often created as large-scale installations in public places. His work is internationally exhibited, mainly in Europe.
- Edward Albee was Albee was playwright-in-residence at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. His Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was presented at the Vienna Festival while he was at Spoleto. Albee also curated a contemporary art exhibition at Spoleto called "Material Matters".
- David Hughes Illustrator, Spoleto 1992, Web site.
- Roy Lichtenstein - October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997, American pop artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relationship between fine art, advertising, and consumerism. Poster, Spoleto.
- Larry Rivers - August 17, 1923 - August 14, 2002. American artist known for his unique style that blended Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. He was also a musician and filmmaker.
- Louise Nevelson, September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988, was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine), she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century. A prominent figure in the international art scene, Nevelson participated in the 31st Venice Biennale. Her work has been included in museum and corporate collections in Europe and North America. Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.
- Willie Birch - Artforum 1994.
- Charles Wadsworth, Pianist and Champion of Chamber Music, Dies at 96. As the founder, director, and genial host of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he helped drive the chamber music boom of the 1970s.
- WCSC - The man credited with expanding the populist appeal of chamber music at Charleston’s famous Spoleto Festival USA has died.
- Scott Nickrenz 1938-2025. New England Conservatory of Music mourns Scott Nickrenz died March 17, 2025. In addition to his work at NEC, Nickrenz directed chamber music programs at the Spoleto Festivals in South Carolina and Italy, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and, for more than a quarter century, at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where he curated a programmatically diverse series and was instrumental in the design and construction of a celebrated venue.
