Susan Mitchell Crawley, the High Museum of Art’s folk art curator since 2004, is resigning effective today.
“I am pleased by what we have been able to accomplish over the past 10 years,” Crawley wrote in an email, “and I look forward to new challenges, beginning with an exhibition for the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center next winter.”
One of Crawley’s greatest achievements was the 2009 exhibition “The Treasure of Ulysses Davis: Sculpture from a Savannah Barbershop.”
“This legacy-changing retrospective revealed that the self-taught artist was considerably more complex and sophisticated than he has been given credit for,” then-Atlanta Journal-Constitution critic Catherine Fox wrote.
Davis’ wood-carvings were featured in the seminal 1982 exhibition “Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980” at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, but further national exposure for the work was limited. The artist rarely sold his pieces because he wanted them to remain together after he died.
“They’re my treasure,” the proud Savannah barber once explained. “If I sold these, I’d be really poor.”
After Atlanta, “Treasure” toured to New York’s American Folk Art Museum, giving the sculpture another national showcase.
Crawley also helped organize last year’s “Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts,” which toured the work of the Montgomery, Ala., sidewalk artist to several U.S. museums after the High.
The Southeast has been a center for vernacular art-making for decades, which in part explains why the High is the only major general museum in North America with a curatorial department devoted to the field.
Crawley helped expand its folk holdings, now numbering more than 800 works, adding important pieces by artists including Louis Monza, Thornton Dial and Minnie Evans.
The High expects to begin a search for a replacement shortly.
MUSIC
Boggs a music-maker and music-inspirer
The Georgia Festival Chorus under Frank Boggs kicks off a series of spring concerts a bit ahead of spring, on March 10 at Smyrna First Baptist Church. And before the month is out, Boggs himself will be honored when an anthem is premiered in his honor on March 24 at Northside United Methodist Church.
Composed by Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Mack Wilberg, the anthem will be sung by the NUMC Choir, directed by Mike Moffit. A former Westminster School choral director who celebrated his 85th birthday last April at a Georgia Festival Chorus concert gala, Boggs is a long-time Wilberg friend and mentor.
The anthem is part of a varied NUMC program, open to the public, titled “Pilgrim Song: Our Journey in Faith” at 8:30 and 11 a.m. Palm Sunday services. The church is at 2799 Northside Drive N.W., Atlanta. www.northsideumc.org.
Meanwhile, Boggs’ Georgia Festival Chorus begins its series of “Alpine Adventure” concerts — a musical tour of England, Austria, Germany and Switzerland — at 6 p.m. March 10 at Smyrna First Baptist, 1275 Church St. S.E., Smyrna. www.smyrnafirst.org.
The free concert also will be presented at 6 p.m. March 17 at Marietta First Baptist Church, 3 p.m. April 21 at Decatur’s Clairmont Presbyterian Church, 6 p.m. April 28 at Westminster Presbyterian Church and 7 p.m. May 5 at NUMC. Details: 404-234-3581, www.tgafc.org.
VISUAL ART
Earn your spurs at Cartersville’s Cowboy Gathering
An exhibit of bronze sculpture of American Indians. A concert by Texas swing aces Asleep at the Wheel. A chuck wagon cook-off. Mandolin, fiddle, guitar and banjo contests.
That cultural meld can only mean one thing: It’s time for the Southeastern Cowboy Gathering. Cartersville’s Booth Western Art Museum will host the 10th annual event Thursday through Saturday.
One of the highlights is a 4 p.m. Thursday gallery tour by Dave McGary through his sculpture exhibit “Native Expressions: Dave McGary’s Bronze Realism.” An exhibit opening and meet-the-artist reception follows from 5 to 7 p.m. (Visitors also may view the exhibit “National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West” during its final weekend at the Booth.) At 7 p.m., the Wyoming-born artist, who has studios in Arizona and Idaho, lectures in the Booth Theatre.
Throughout the day on Saturday, there will be a variety of family-friendly events including the Southeastern Chuck Wagon Cook-Off (with teams preparing beans, meat, potatoes, bread and dessert). Asleep at the Wheel’s 7 p.m. Saturday concert at the Grand Theatre is sold out but the museum is compiling a waiting list ($30).
Cowboy Gathering tickets: $10, $8 age 65 and up, $7 students with an ID, $3 age 12 and under. 770-387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Spano, Georgia Boy Choir headed to Carnegie Hall
Robert Spano, who led the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall last October, will return to the New York music center twice in March.
Spano is set to conduct Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos (St. Mark Passion), a piece that draws on the sounds of Latin America, on March 10. The performance will feature soprano Jessica Rivera, jazz vocalist Luciana Souza, members of Schola Cantorum de Venezuela and New York high school singers.
Then on March 19 in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Spano will join the Ensemble ACJW in partnership with the New York City Department of Education to present Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles.
Details: www.robertspanomusic.com.
Upping the Atlanta presence at Carnegie, the Georgia Boy Choir will appear there on May 28, joined by a choir of voices from around the country in performance of John Rutter’s “Mass of the Children.” The free Stern Auditorium concert will kick off a tour that will include New York, New Jersey and the New England states. Info: www.georgiaboychoir.org.
