Blog: City Blog

Knoxville History Project Art Wraps on Magnolia Avenue Celebrate Black Artists

As of a year ago, the four shiny metal utility boxes along Magnolia Avenue could best be described as "utilitarian." They were modern infrastructure upgrades, for sure, but no one probably would judge them to be aesthetically attractive.

The large boxes were being used narrowly to house traffic-signal wiring and electronics - not as a means of merging art and interpretive local history of East Knoxville.

The Knoxville History Project saw the potential for more.

Ruth Cobb Brice's Untitled Landscape

Ruth Cobb Brice's "Untitled Landscape"

In 2021, three of the four boxes were wrapped to showcase the artwork of two Knoxville native African-American artists, Beauford Delaney and Ruth Cobb Brice, whose actual paintings can be seen at the Knoxville Museum of Art and at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center.

A copy of Delaney's "Untitled (New York City)" adorns the corner of Magnolia and Jessamine Street, while Brice's untitled abstract can be found at Magnolia and Winona Street, and her untitled abstract landscape is at Magnolia and Bertrand Street.

Beauford Delaney's Untitled (New York City)

Beauford Delaney's "Untitled (New York City)"

The fourth box, at Magnolia and Hall of Fame Drive, features Charles Griffin Farr's "Birds, People, Palace of Fine Arts."

Charles Griffin Farr's Birds, People, Palace of Fine Arts

Charles Griffin Farr's "Birds, People, Palace of Fine Arts"

For more details about the artists, the paintings being featured and who is funding the citywide art wraps, click HERE. The four Magnolia Avenue art wraps were funded by the City of Knoxville.

Each colorful wrap includes an interpretive panel featuring a photograph of the artist and a short biography of the artist and his or her local connections.

An added bonus with the Magnolia Avenue wraps is the extra historical interpretation on the sides of the boxes. For example, the wrap at Magnolia and Bertrand includes a vintage photo of the former Swan Bakery that's across the street, and the African American group the Swan Silvertones is remembered and honored.

Paul James, Director of Publishing and Development with the Knoxville History Project, said his group was excited to be able to partner with the City to strongly represent two African American artists who are Knoxville natives.

"The Knoxville History Project strives to tell Knoxville’s story in all its diversity and complexity," James said. "It has been rewarding to work with the Knoxville Museum of Art and the Beck Cultural Exchange Center to bring important artworks from their collections out onto the city streets.

"Thanks to both organizations’ efforts, Beauford Delaney’s work is now recognized for his remarkable talent as one of the nation’s leading Abstract Impressionists. Conversely, Ruth Cobb Brice has been largely unknown as an artist, and a teacher, but is now receiving her due.

"The Magnolia Avenue Streetscapes Improvement Program provided a wonderful opportunity to showcase both artists, and highlight local history, to those who drive or walk along the sidewalks of one of Knoxville’s busiest streets every day."

Here are summaries of Delaney's and Brice's accomplishments and their Knoxville roots:

Ruth Cobb Brice

Brice, born in Knoxville, taught at schools in Rogersville, Greeneville and LaFollette before being hired in 1928 to teach art at Heiskell Elementary School, then a public school for black children. She later taught at Maynard Elementary in Mechanicsville.

According to the Knoxville History Project, Brice’s interest in art blossomed more fully while studying at Knoxville College during the mid-1930s. When she had the opportunity, she studied with professional artists in Washington, D.C.

In the 1940s, she began writing poetry under the pseudonym Rachel Jane McKinney, and her 1949 poetry booklet "The Wrong Slant" gives her a claim to be Knoxville's first black female author, according to the Knoxville History Project.

By 1953, she was exhibiting her artwork in Knoxville, and over the next two decades, her work was on display in local galleries. She died in 1971 and is buried in Crestview Cemetery in the West View community.

Ruth Cobb Brice's Untitled Abstract

Ruth Cobb Brice's "Untitled Abstract"

The Beck Cultural Exchange Center organized a retrospective exhibition of 50 of her works in 1985, and several of Brice's works are included in Beck Center's permanent collection.

Beauford Delaney

Delaney, born in a small wooden house on Knoxville’s East Vine Street in 1901, became a truly internationally acclaimed modern artist several decades later.

The Knoxville History Project writes that he had settled in New York by 1929, painting colorful street scenes of Greenwich Village and portraits of such major figures as W.E.B. DuBois, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and W.C. Handy. The following year, when Delaney was still in his 20s, the Whitney Studio Galleries (later, the Whitney Museum of American Art) presented a small exhibition, and his work drew critical acclaim.

In 1953, Delaney moved to Paris, where he explored Abstract Expressionism and developed a dedicated worldwide following. He died there in 1979.

The Knoxville Museum of Art boasts the largest public collection of Delaney’s work. Meanwhile, the Beck Cultural Exchange Center is restoring Delaney's only remaining ancestral home, a two-story house on Dandridge Avenue, to be the future Delaney Museum at Beck.

Posted by evreeland On 18 February, 2022 at 4:01 PM