PERMANENT COLLECTION
The Gadsden Arts Center has several outstanding works of art on permanent loan or as part of the permanent collection. The Center is in the process of expanding the collection through the generous donations of local art colletors.
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 Purvis Young
untitled, n.d.
collage, ink, paint on wood, 24” x 43.5”
Gift of Lou and Calynne Hill, December 2009
2009.1.9
Purvis Young created this collage using several old office file folders and envelopes that he cut and stapled to a board and then painted. Three large faces and various smaller figures float throughout the composition. Young applied a thick varnish to the surface of the collage that is not uniform and adds additional texture to the work. The Gadsden Arts Center exhibited this work in the exhibition, Vernacular Art from the Hill Collection, August 28–October 25, 2009.
Purvis Young has lived most of his life in Overtown, Miami, Florida, an inner city area now bisected by an interstate. He was arrested for breaking and entering (he says he never stole anything) at age 18 and spent three years in prison. It was during this time that he began to paint. He has exhibited in museums around the county like the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York.
Purvis Young is a self-taught urban artist whose vibrant paintings can be seen on overpasses, broken furniture, old cars, and discarded boards. He often uses broken pieces of wood to awkwardly frame his work. He is self-educated, having researched art history extensively and says he was influenced by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rembrandt. Young’s vibrant paintings often show “graffiti-like repetitive images” of traffic crowds and hovering angels. He uses angels to represent hope, wild horses to represent freedom, and eyes to represent “the system”. His style is naïve, expressionistic and symbolic.
Purvis Young passed away April 20, 2010, at the age of 67.
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Works on Loan:
Florida Shirt
Leo McMillan
mixed media
On loan from the artist
This large-scale mixed media sculpture represents all things associated with the state of Florida, included dolphins, oranges, flamingos, NASA, snakes, alligators, and more while posing as a “Florida Shirt”. Artist Leo McMillan teaches 3D Design and Art Tools and Techniques at Florida State University and has maintained a professional art studio for thirty years. He is a past recipient of an Individual Artists Fellowship from the State of Florida and was one of three artists chosen statewide to design a monumental sculpture for the front of the State Capitol. Currently, McMillan resides in Quincy, and sits on the Gadsden Arts Center Exhibition Committee.
 Ichiboku Sculptures:
Natabori, Mongaku, Yama Uba
Mark Lindquist
wood
On loan from the artist
Mark Lindquist has been an innovator and leader in the field of woodturning/sculpture since the late 1960s. Lindquist's thirty-plus years of contributions to contemporary art have altered the direction of woodturning and sculpture worldwide. Through exhibiting, writing and teaching, Lindquist was instrumental in bringing about the acceptance of the craft of woodturning as a serious art form, and inspired and nurtured the followers of this fledgling movement. Mark Lindquist's sculpture has evolved out of his art historical studies and his mastery of, and experimentation with, the craft of woodturning. Beginning in the late 1960s, he developed many of the techniques and aesthetic concepts which underlie the current studio woodturning movement, including the use of flawed materials (especially spalted wood), the application of modern abrasive technology, and the integration of Japanese ceramic sensibilities.
These sculptures are from one of Lindquist’s several series of sculpted wood. Ichiboku, literally "one tree," is a type of Japanese sculpture made from a single block of wood. This technique flourished in the ninth century when a spirit of religious revivalism prevailed, and the spirit of the tree was invoked to lend strength to the image carved from it.
Lindquist’s works have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world, and have been acquired by prestigious museums such as the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the White House Collection of American Craft, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, and numerous other public and private collections.
In September of 2010, the Gadsden Arts Center will host and exhibition that explores the 40-year evolution of Lindquist’s work, from wood vessels and furniture to large-scale totems to abstract photography.
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Gadsden Arts, Inc.