Guest Blogger: George Bassi

Next Saturday, the cultural eyes of Mississippi will be focused on Laurel and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art as we host the 30th anniversary celebration of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. The celebration not only includes an awards dinner but also an exhibition featuring MIAL award winners in Visual Art and Photography over the past 30 years.

Drawn from both public and private collections, this exhibit will be on view June 13 – August 2, 2009, at LRMA and will be a virtual “Who’s Who” of Mississippi artists, including works by William Dunlap, Sam Gilliam, Birney Imes, Mildred Wolfe, Maude S. Clay, Eudora Welty, Wyatt Waters, and Charles Carraway. The list of award recipients is a strong reflection of the talents of Mississippians and the artistic heritage of our state.

The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters was founded in 1978 by a few discerning individuals, including former Governor William Winter and Dr. Cora Norman, both of Jackson; Dr. Aubrey Lucas and Dr. Noel Polk, both of Hattiesburg; and Mrs. Keith McLean of Cleveland. They knew that among Mississippi's greatest riches are our artists, writers, and musicians, who must be supported, nurtured, and recognized.

The prestigious awards, first made in 1980, are presented in seven categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Visual Art, Musical Composition (Concert), Musical Composition (Popular), Photography, and Poetry.

The Institute's juried competition is one of a kind in the state. Carefully selected judges, chosen from out of state, are prominent in their fields. Supported by Mississippi Institutes of Higher Learning, MIAL is privately funded, self-perpetuating, and non-profit.

Those being recognized this year include two Lifetime Achievement winners: painter Marshall Bouldin and writer Elizabeth Spencer. Other 2009 MIAL winners include Howard Bahr (Fiction), Steve Rouse (Music Composition – Classical/Concert), 3 Doors Down (Music Composition – Contemporary/Popular), Douglas A. Blackmon (Nonfiction), Jane Rule Burdine (Photography), Brooks Haxton (Poetry), and H. C. Porter (Visual Arts).

A highlight of the events on Saturday will be readings and book-signings at 4:00 p.m. by this year’s winners in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, and visual art, as well as the two lifetime achievement honorees. The readings and signings will be held in the Museum lobby and are open to the public.

The MIAL Awards Dinner will be held at LRMA this Saturday, June 13, beginning with a reception at 5:30 p.m. in the Lower Level Galleries followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. in the American Gallery. Tickets for the Awards Dinner are $50 per person; call the museum at 601-649-6374 for more information.

George Bassi is Director of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art

Adult Education Summer Classes

Parents have been busy signing their children up for our summer art classes at the museum, but don't forget to sign yourself up for something fun, too! Starting on June 2, local teacher and artist Sharon Howard will offer a four-day adult oil painting class. Participants will learn how to paint a landscape in oil. She will teach another four-day class the last two weeks in July in which participants will again work in oils, this time creating a still-life. We are also offering an adult ceramic class in June, taught by Byron Myrick, JCJC instructor and member of the Mississippi Craftman's Guild. The class begins on June 9 and will meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-8:30 for three weeks. Mr. Myrick will teach participants how to create hand-built vessels with interesting textures. Don't miss your chance to work with this acclaimed Mississippi artist. Come on by the museum and spend your summer with us!

Free Family Art and Homeschool Friday

This Friday will be the last Home School Friday until August. We're winding down the school year and getting ready to gear up for the summer here at LRMA. For those who are looking for something to entertain the kids this summer, don't forget about our Free Family Art Wednesdays in the museum Annex. You can stop by any time between 1 PM and 4 PM, beginning on June 3 to create a free make and take art activity. The last Free Family Art will be on July 1. Hope to see you there!

Guest Blogger: Angie King

Looking Forward to the Summer at LRMA


With just two weeks of school left, children and parents around Jones County are looking forward to summer and the opportunities it brings. At the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, we have plenty of activities for adults and children to enjoy this summer. The official LRMA kickoff to summer will take place on Friday, June 5, when we will host Blues Bash on the front lawn. A ticket to this evening event includes a barbeque dinner from the Smokehouse of Laurel, free soda, and hours of great music and dancing on the front lawn. This year’s entertainment will be Don McMinn and Nighttrain. Tickets are $20 for museum members and $25 for non-members. Call the museum at (601) 649-6374 to reserve your ticket, and be sure to pick up a t-shirt as well.

In June, we have a full schedule of classes for all ages. Every Wednesday in June, and continuing through July 1, the education staff will offer a Free Family Art activity for children in the museum Annex from 1-4 P.M. This is a great opportunity to just walk in and make a free art activity to take home with you. For children who are entering kindergarten through sixth grade, we offer a four-day pottery camp where kids can learn how to create ceramic art pieces and throw on the pottery wheel. Adults can also explore clay with notable local artist and JCJC instructor Byron Myrick in a course that runs for six evenings throughout the month. Also for adults, we are offering a four-day landscape oil painting course taught by local artist and South Jones High School art teacher, Sharon Howard.

The month of July has more in store for art lovers. Students from middle school to college can sign up for a fun five week oil painting class with artist and Southern Miss professor David Wilkinson. Participants will learn basic oil painting and mixed media techniques. Younger children, from kindergarten to sixth grade, will love this year’s “Under the Sea” Art Camp. This four-day camp will feature numerous projects, including painting and collage. At the end of the month, Sharon Howard will offer another adult oil painting class, this time to learn how to paint a still life. This class is designed for the beginner, or to expand a student’s knowledge learned during the first oil painting course.

All summer long the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has something to offer for people of all ages. If you are staying in town this summer, we have a class for you, or you can stop by just to enjoy the art. To find out times and costs for art classes, please call the museum at (601) 649-6374 or look on our website at www.lrma.org.


Angie King is Education Outreach Coordinator at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Guest Blogger: Allyn Boone

An outstanding permanent collection, nationally significant exhibitions, and an award-winning education program have made the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art one of the best mid-sized museums in America. And, unlike many museums in the country, LRMA provides broad access to its artwork and programs through a generous policy of open admission and free activities.

The Museum’s founders felt that LRMA should be a gift to the community, and they wanted to ensure that no one would be turned away because of cost. Since opening in 1923, LRMA has never charged an admission fee, and most of its programs and activities are open to the public at no charge.

This practice is possible in part because of the generosity of LRMA members. Membership levels range from $15 for a Student membership to $2,500 for Laureate members. Each category offers specific benefits, and there is a membership category to fit every budget.

LRMA members receive personal invitations to exhibition openings, studio classes, trips, lectures, concerts, and other activities offered by LRMA. Some membership categories receive discounts on trips, education classes, and Museum Shop purchases, while others receive complimentary tickets to the annual LRMA Gala.

All members receive a subscription to the LRMA newsletter, which is an excellent source of information about the Museum and its collection, exhibitions, and programs. Additionally, members have the satisfaction of knowing that their contributions enable LRMA to introduce thousands of children each year to the transformative power of the visual arts.

A new program called Adopt-a-Bus allows LRMA members to help school groups visit the Museum. In conjunction with their membership donation, members can make an additional contribution which is used to provide transportation stipends for schools bringing students to the Museum for tours and activities. The LRMA Adopt-a-Bus fund ensures that school children are able to visit LRMA despite rising transportation costs.

Membership is the cornerstone of LRMA support. From caring for the collections to presenting masterworks by legendary artists to creating learning opportunities for children and families, membership allows LRMA to achieve the level of excellence for which the Museum is known throughout the country. We consider our members to be our partners, and we invite you to join with us for an exciting year of top-quality collections, exhibitions, and education programs.

For more information about LRMA membership, please call 601-649-6374 or visit the LRMA website at www.LRMA.org.


Allyn Boone is Director of Development at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

At the Museum: Thomas Sully, Portrait Painter

One of the leading portraitists in 19th century America was Thomas Sully (1783-1872), whose Ideal Head (c.1850) hangs in the American Gallery at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Sully was born in England but emigrated to the United States at age nine. He studied miniature painting with his elder brother after a failed apprenticeship in accounting, and went on to study briefly in England, but was primarily self-taught. There were no art academies in the U.S. in his youth, so he learned by copying the works of others. In fact, an early work was a copy of one of Gilbert Stuart’s famed portraits of George Washington. Like Stuart, he became a painter of presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams. He also, famously, painted a young Queen Victoria shortly after her ascendency to the throne of England in 1837. Perhaps even more famously, it is his portrait of Jackson that we see on the U.S. twenty-dollar bill today.

Sully was a hard-working and level-headed businessman, and very prolific both personally and professionally. The over 2,500 paintings he produced supported a family of nine (three step-children and six more). Although Sully never attended formal art training, both Gilbert Stuart and Benjamin West served as mentors. West, an American expatriate living in England, took the young Sully under his wing, wrote letters of introduction, and promoted his career wherever he could. West’s two portraits in the Museum collection, Mr. J. Fall and Mrs. Magdalen Whyte Fall, date to rather earlier than West’s interaction with Sully, but are typical of West’s work. West’s decision to paint his subjects in the dress of the day rather than imaginary Greco-Roman attire was revolutionary at the time. Sully followed this trend in most of his portraits, but the young woman portrayed in Ideal Head wears a dark green velvet drape that treads the borderline between classical and contemporary. Sully, like Stuart and West, was attentive to the individual features of his sitter. However, he did write that, “...I know that resemblance in a portrait is essential; but no fault will be found with the artist (at least by the sitter) if he improve the appearance.” Always the businessman, Sully knew that pleasing his sitters - and perhaps their vanity - was essential to building up his clientele. The Museum’s sensitive image of a young rosy-cheeked woman, draped in velvet and seated before an idealized landscape, may have been a commissioned portrait, but if it was, her name has been lost to history. On the other hand, this may be one of a number of works Sully produced depicting “ideal” physical types. Unless and until we know the sitter’s name, this work is titled to reflect that possibility.

Thomas Sully lived and worked in Philadelphia, then the largest city in the United States. He was influential in the development of his younger Philadelphia contemporary, John F. Francis, whose Still Life With Strawberries and Cream (c.1850) also hangs in the Museum’s American Gallery. Francis began his career as an itinerant portrait painter but decided to specialize in still life. He was also friendly and collegial with the Peale family. Charles Willson Peale assisted him by introducing him to Gilbert Stuart and other important American painters. His younger brother, James Peale, painted the Portrait of Nicholas Brewer II in the Museum collection. These interconnections may seem like strange coincidence, but in fact America was a much smaller place, and the art world even smaller.

Jill R. Chancey, PhD, is curator of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Adult Pottery Class in April

Don't forget that Mother's Day is right around the corner, and what could be better than a hand-made gift? Beginning next week, on April 7, LRMA will hold an adult pottery class throughout the month of April. The class will be held on every Tuesday evening in April from 5:00-7:00 PM in our Carriage House Studio. This class is a lot of fun and is great for people who have never worked in clay or people who are experienced. We will make hand-built clay projects as well as work on the pottery wheel. Mandy Buchanan and Angie King will instruct this four-week class. This is a fun and relaxing way to spend your evenings, so join us at adult pottery and get your hands dirty!

Reminder: Mississippi Art Faculty Juried Exhibition

The last day to see the MAFJE is this Sunday, March 29!

For even more pics from Tuesday

The Impact covers the story, too!

And a few more from the Laurel Leader-Call

More Spring Break photos: Audubon Zoomobile and Smokey the Bear

Smokey the Bear made an appearance!




The Audubon Zoomobile folks came to visit with two snakes, a parrot, a hedgehog, and a rat for kids to look at and maybe even touch. This snake had beautiful iridescent scales:

Spring Break Art Festival

The weather cleared up and the sun came out just in time for all to have a grand time at the Spring Break Art Festival, which happened to also be on St. Patrick's Day. The theme was Green: green for the Irish, and green for the environment.

The Blues Rangers rocked the house, er....rocked the *lawn*:




Most people made hats out of recycled newspaper, but these kids opted for paper airplanes instead:



Guild member Allison Travis helps young visitors decorate their lucky shamrocks:




Mandy Buchanan (pictured) and Angie King painted faces:



Becky Jackson, Brittany Avera, and Jo Lynn Helton run the Bottlecap Necklaces table, where kids recycled decorated bottlecaps:

Spring Break activities here at the LRMA

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art plans Spring Break Activities -

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold a Spring Break Festival Tuesday, March 17 from 1 - 3 p.m. on the Museum's front lawn. The Audubon Zoomobile is making a return visit this year and will showcase a variety of exotic animals and the Blues Rangers from DeSoto National Forest will provide music. Art activities will feature recycled materials such as newspaper hats and decorated paper owls, and a St. Patrick's day shamrock activity. The festival is free and open to the public and intended for the whole family.

The Museum will also hold its annual "Spring Break Art Break" classes March 18 - 20 for children age kindergarten through sixth grade. Recycling will be the theme as participants create cereal box art, soda can piggy banks, and other recyclable treasures. The schedule will be 10:00 a.m. until noon for kindergarten through third grade and 2:00 until 4:00 p.m. for fourth through sixth grade. Classes will be held in the Museum Annex. Cost is $35 per child for LRMA members and $45 for non-members. As space is limited, reservations will only be held with payment. For more information or to register for classes call the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art at 601-649-6374.

Guest Blogger: Tommie Rodgers

More on Fakes and Forgeries

In my last article, I discussed my encounters with fake artwork and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art’s investigation into two paintings acquired in the early 1990s along with works on paper offered as recent gifts. I would like to continue the discussion of why forgers forge.

The issue of forgery has been a quiet subject in the museum community until recent times. Museums across the country have accepted fakes into their collections for decades. Every museum from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art have fallen victim to forger’s attempts to be included in these fine art collections. Staff members have had to learn to be investigators and to pursue their own investigations of questionable artwork.

Forgers are not unlike other criminals in that they may get their rush from the act of deception. While there are self-proclaimed artists on every street, the forger’s own art usually has been rejected somewhere along the way. The forger then begins to pursue vengeance with his scams of smoke and mirrors.

The desire to be praised and recognized as a fine artist drives them to do whatever it takes to be included in a reputable museum or to see their work sold alongside artists of national or international recognition. To those forgers, money is not the issue, although it may play a role in their activities.

To others, it’s all about the money, and the money seekers are not really interested in creating the finest quality. They are more interested in a quick job to get quick cash.

There are some typical characteristics of forged artwork. Most are small in size and are claimed to be executed by artists who are marginally recognizable. The theory is that one would want to forge work by an artist who has already been accepted in the art market but one would not want to go overboard by creating works in the name of an internationally recognized artist such as Monet or Picasso. This mistake would send out red flags to the masses and experts would discredit the work quickly. The IRS is also more likely to audit donations with high dollar values.

Forgers may begin like most artists do in their training. Drawing is the most basic of training with painting and sculpture being more difficult to master. Not only does the forger have to learn to execute a quality painting, but they have to research and know the artists materials and techniques and how they were used, before they begin. This all takes time, research, and experiments.

There are numerous publications that discuss ways in which forgers work and why they pursue their craft. For instance, a newly published book called The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick discusses the experimentation that Han van Meegeren performed during the 1940s trying to replicate a 17th century crackled surface. He experimented with a mixture of Bakelite (the first plastic invented in 1907 by Leo Baekeland), turpentine, linseed oil and pigments and made numerous failed attempts at baking the painted surface, each time hoping for the experiment to work.

One day he left his home and the oven unattended for an extended period of time. When he returned, he found that the painted panel experiment worked. He was overjoyed to see that it was possible to create a forgery of a 17th century painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer.

According to Dolnick, an oil painting will not only dry but harden. Drying can takes weeks but hardening can take years, even up to a century. A newly executed oil painting can be rubbed gently with a cotton swab soaked with rubbing alcohol and the color will appear on the swab. A completely hardened oil painting and a painting created with Bakelite will show no color in this test. Van Meegeren was aware that he needed to pass this first hurdle in his quest to create a convincingly-faked Vermeer.

Van Meegeren fooled experts, museum directors, and wealthy collectors as well as officers of Hitler’s regime. He went so far as to purchase a 17th century painting from an antique store, scrape off the old paint and began a new painting using the Bakelite material. Of course, he had other tricks up his sleeve to further age the newly baked plastic. As World War II came to an end, so did van Meegeren’s secret. His trial began in October of 1947 and van Meegeren died on December 30, 1947, at the age of 58. He never served a day of his one-year sentence.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Mississippi Art Faculty winners

Best in Show:

Brent Funderburk, Mississippi State University
Nightwatch, 2006







Awards of Excellence:

Chatham Meade, William Carey University
Yellow Springs Pink, 2007





Albert Sperath, University of Mississippi
African Rain, 2006





Christopher Brady, East Central Community College
Ray, 2008



Please note: All images are copyright the artists; DO NOT REPRODUCE WITHOUT PERMISSION. Thank you.

Coming soon: Mississippi Art Faculty Juried Exhibition

Mississippi Art Faculty: Juried Exhibition
February 20 - March 29, 2005

LRMA is hosting a juried exhibition open to all full-time and part-time art studio faculty at any Mississippi college or university (two-year or four-year). By bringing art teachers together we hope to see what direction art in Mississippi is taking, and to showcase the diversity of art in Mississippi today. Today's art professors work in all media, from the traditional oil on canvas to digital, film, and installation, so this show promises to have something of interest for anyone interested in contemporary art and artists. The exhibition will be juried by Joseph W. Lampo, Deputy Director of Programming and Curator of Paintings, Prints, and Photographs at the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR.

The opening reception and awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, February 22, at 2:00 p.m.

The artists selected for the exhibition are:


Delta State University

Robyn Moore


East Central Community College

Christopher Brady

East Mississippi Community College

Terry Cherry

Hinds Community College

Melanie Atkinson
Paula Duren
Randy Minton


Jones County Junior College

Mark Brown
Byron Myrick

Meridian Community College

Terrell Taylor


Millsaps College

Brent Fogt


Mississippi College

Becky Barnett
Stephanie Busbea
Bart Rainey
Albert Smathers

Mississippi State University

William Pittman Andrews
James Davis
Brent Funderburk
Marita Gootee
Christopher W. Luhar-Trice
Soon Ee Ngoh
Robert Ring

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Ashley Chavis
Eunika Rogers


University of Mississippi

William N. Beckwith
Lou Haney
Robert Malone
Sheri Fleck Rieth
Albert Sperath
Carlyle Wolfe


University of Southern Mississippi

Deanna Douglas
Janet Gorzegno
James Meade


William Carey University

Chatham Meade

Guest Blogger : Tommie Rodgers

Fakes, Forgeries and Copies, Oh My!

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to see and learn about fakes and forgeries in the art market. Like all museums, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has unknowingly acquired artwork that is fake - meaning that the objects were created by someone other than the signature states. For ethical reasons, museums do not want to put these pieces back into public circulation, so the works are generally used to teach connoisseurship or used for the practice of conservation treatment.

My first forged encounter was with a painting that was supposedly by George Luks who was one of “The Eight” and should have been painted around 1920. This painting was purchased in the early 1990s at an auction in New Orleans. The painting is a portrait of a young man and the quality and condition are convincing enough. No one suspected its authenticity until a museum friend heard of the purchase and alerted the staff. We looked at the painting under a black light (one that fluoresces) and could see where new paint had been applied over old, but that evidence only shows that a conservator, restorer or forger had worked on the piece. There was a nagging feeling that the subject matter didn’t quite match the other work done by Luks but still no evidence. A few years later, we located and contacted the Luks expert and she confirmed our suspicions.

Another encounter was the gift of a small landscape supposedly painted by George Inness. The gift was delivered with no paperwork and the donor was impossible to contact after the delivery. This point may not mean much to most people, but a paper trail is important to establish the provenance (history of ownership) of the work, its value, and the evidence of ownership.

No one really suspected deceit; we thought the donor was just being difficult. It was not until Dr. Michael Quick, the expert on the work of the 19th century painter George Inness came to visit LRMA to see our authentic painting by Inness that we learned a very simple fact. Dr. Quick asked to remove both paintings from their frames so that he could see the backs. The small painting was painted on hardboard and not just any hardboard - it was painted on Masonite.

We know that Masonite was invented here in Laurel in 1924 and was unavailable to artists in 1890, which is the date assigned to the painting. Many artists have painted on wooden panels for hundreds of years but there were no mechanically-made indentions on the back until Masonite came along. (Please note that the painting Close of a Rainy Day by Inness hangs in the American Gallery and is definitely authentic.)

Not until recent years have I thought that other objects would be of interest to forge. We have encountered “faked” wooden African artifacts. The forger’s trick is to accelerate the age of the wood by placing it in a smoke pit. The piece will darken in color and will smell like smoke. If the outer layer of wood is scratched on bottom, a person can tell if the wood is old or new.

I’ve recently read of Native American baskets in the California region that are being faked and sold as old baskets from extinct tribes or from tribes who no longer have weavers. The baskets are newly made for little money and then “doctored” to age them. Weaving a basket for fraudulent purposes is too much work to not get recognition for it. Obviously, there’s a middle man somewhere making a lot of money.

Our most recent encounter of forged artwork have been offerings of late 19th and early 20th century drawings. Most of the originals can be traced to auction sales. The forger’s trick here is to use old paper (probably the inside leaves of old books) and with a pretty good hand and eye, the forger copies the image in front of him.

We’ve become quite good at detecting these fakes. The Internet and auction catalogues allow for us to find the originals or least similar images by the signed artist. The two are never exactly alike. A jeweler’s loupe is a handy tool and one can see more details than with a magnifying glass. It will also allow a person to see if a document has been “doctored” or if the piece has been photomechanically reproduced (for example, a poster print). A black light is helpful to see where paintings have been touched up.Artists’ signature books are good research tools to compare signatures. And, certainly the inspection of the materials used and their appropriateness to their time period is helpful in determining the correct age.

In closing, I recommend that the buyer should beware! Don’t collect things that you know nothing about and deal only with reputable dealers and galleries. And to forgers, these tools along with world-wide professional communications are here to stay. Your talents could better be used elsewhere.


Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

birthday headgear

For some reason, people continue to prefer the tiara to the Birthday Samurai Hat. I have no idea why that would be the case.

Here's Simone celebrating:

Art Talk Today, Thursday, January 15

Wyatt Waters, watercolor artist, will be speaking in our Lower Level Galleries today at noon. We provide drinks and cookies, and you can bring your bag lunch if you'd like.

A joyous and prosperous new year to all!

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)
Number 98: Ryogoku (Fireworks at Ryogoku), 1858
Series: Meisho Yedo Hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
LRMA 28.74