The natural beauty of America's South has been depicted by a variety of popular authors. What if a variety of graphic artists interpreted these literary works visually?

That is the idea that led to the exhibit "The Countryside in Art and Southern Literature" which will be presented at the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation at 20 W. Broadway in Jim Thorpe from Saturday, August 18 through October 14, 2012. Foundation hours are Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, August 18, from 4 to 6 p.m.

"The goals of the exhibit are to entertain the viewer with visual responses to Southern literature on the theme of nature, and encourage the viewer to pick up a book by a Southern author," explained curator Virginia Creighton.

"I asked a number of artists if they would respond to Southern literature on the theme of nature. I received quite a varied group of art pieces: sculpture, photography and paintings from a diverse array of literature selections."

The exhibit contains 16 literary pieces, with 16 responses matched to the Southern literature.

"The show is not political," she noted, "although the Civil War serves as an invisible backdrop. It is something that is always present, although there's nothing directly about the Civil War. There are photographs of Mount Vernon and of a plantation. They may be representations of slaves at work, but there is no mention of slaves in the literature. It is up to the viewer to combine the literature and the arts in a way that works for them.

"I wanted to travel in the South," she said. "I thought about things that I had read from Southern authors and felt this literature would be different from what is written in the North."

The idea for this show followed from her two previously curated shows. One celebrated the quadra-centennial of Henry Hudson's navigation of the Hudson River in 1609. After that, Creighton curated a show on literature with a theme of water, where artists selected literary pieces that mentioned water.

"I've always been interested in how artwork echoes literature," she said.

Creighton asked artists to select a written piece and create an artistic interpretation from it. Several of the pieces were created for the show. "The literature came first," she noted. "The art pieces were not intended to be an illustration of the literature, but to be a response to it."

For instance, the painting "Chicken Man." by Ann Tanksley, was selected as a response to a paragraph from The Blacksmith's Daughter by Minnette Coleman. The text reads, "She had beautiful eyes. Coal black, big and round, with naturally long lashes, but lacking life. He overlooked her obvious sadness to appraise her obvious attributes. The black hair was like spun silk and neatly placed in a bun at the back of her head. He wondered how long it was. Just like an Indian maiden. He heard their mother was part Indian. Her face was not sallow but almost white, like good porcelain china. Smooth."

Tanksley's 1976 24" x 30" oil on canvas painting is a muralist depiction of everyday life in the South, the portrait of a black man holding two chickens, one under an arm and one in his hands. In this example, the painting preceded the 2010 novel by 34 years.

Creighton met Foundation owner Anita Shapolsky in the 1980s when Shapolsky had a gallery in the SoHo District of New York City. "We've been in touch over the years," she said. "Recently I was talking about the show, and Anita was interested in it. The Shapolsky Foundation will be our first venue on a traveling tour. I had planned to begin the show in 2013, but Anita was interested in having it right away. It will travel to a number of places including the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, New York."

The Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation was established in 1998 and is home to one of the largest and most historically pertinent collections of American Abstract Expressionism in Pennsylvania. For additional information, visit The Shapolsky Foundation, or call (570) 325-5815 or (610) 442-4148.

© Al Zagofsky 2012