SUMMARY
Featuring artists and art work from every major American art movement – the Greenville County Museum of Art is a real treasure located in downtown Greenville, SC. With free admission – it’s a fantastic place to visit on a rainy afternoon or with a field trip from one of the local schools.
ARTICLE
Located in downtown Greenville, SC – the Greenville County Museum of Art exhibits and collects American art. Founded in 1963 – the Greenville County Art Museum features both local artists from South Carolina as well as many American artists.
With over 90,000 square feet of exhibition space, classrooms, and a 190 seat auditorium, the museum is a community focused museum that provides exhibits for the public as well as a number of educational opportunities for local residents. The museum itself is open every day of the week except for Mondays – and charges no admission fee. The art museum is supported by local taxes, donations, and grants.
Besides some wonderful exhibits, the Greenville County Museum of Art provides classes in a number of media that include photography, painting, drawing, and ceramics. Courses are very affordable and members of the museum receive additional discounts. Art classes are offered for both adults and children – though there is also a summer art camp available for children of all ages. During these summer camps children get the opportunity to create art work through workshops, explore the museum on a more intimate level, and participate in creating their own “art museum.”
The Greenville County Art Museum has a number of collections of American art, though one of their most prized collections is their “Southern Art” collection. Many of these pieces were created by Southern artists or about the South by non-native southerners. There are pieces from the 1700’s up until contemporary pieces and cover a wide range of movements from impressionists to modernists. Some of the artists included in this collection are Georgia O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Edward Hopper among others.
Besides the Southern Collection – the Greenville County Museum of Art also has quite an extensive collection of contemporary American art. This contemporary collection features artists from every major American art movements of the past several centuries.
The art museum also features a number of community education programs that are free to the public and held on Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings. Most of these programs are short talks and lectures by different museum staffers as well as visiting art academics and artists. They delve into various topics ranging from African American artwork and artists to in depth discussions of single artists like Jasper Johns or Andrew Wyeth. For a complete listing of events, shows, and classes at the Greenville County Museum of Art – their web site is http://www.greenvillemuseum.org.
Updated: January, 2010