Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

Opening Reception for Sammy Britt Retrospective

October 5, 2019 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Opening Reception for Sammy Britt Retrospective

Delta State University’s Fielding Wright Art Center is proud to present a retrospective of Sammy Britt, a distinguished Mississippi artist and a long-time member of Delta State University’s faculty. In 2015, Britt was awarded the Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and in 2017, the Mississippi Governor’s Art Award. Sammy Britt has taught painting and drawing at Delta State for 35 years, retiring in 2002 as Professor Emeritus. Britt continues to share his unique approach to painting with DSU students, offering plein air painting classes at his studio on North Bayou.

Britt, a Delta native, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in painting from the Memphis Academy of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in painting from the University of Mississippi. In the summer of 1963, Britt took a workshop with Henry Hensche at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Britt credits Hensche with showing him a new of seeing light and color which would become the theme that runs through all of Britt’s work. Britt explained that Hensche taught a new way of seeing and painting that contrasted sharply with the traditional tonal methods taught in art schools. Hensche compared painting to music and insisted that just as a piece of music may be written in a certain key, painters should look for the specific light key that distinguishes the time of day, the weather, or the season. Britt spent his career exploring the language of light and color and the different light keys in which they are seen. Britt claims that “In our greatest artistic moment we can merely create a weak illusion of God’s great creative genius, but that tiny glimpse of God’s beauty is more than enough to share with another soul.”

Sammy Britt’s retrospective at Delta State University brings together work created over the last sixty years documenting his various interests. What makes the exhibition particularly special is that many of the works are from his own private collection and have not been shown publicly before.

Sammy Britt’s Retrospective will run from October 3 to October 31, 2019. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, October 5th from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on weekends, holidays, and during semester breaks.

For further information visit the DSU Art Department’s website at https://www.deltastate.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/art/ or contact 662.846.4720. For updates and announcements of upcoming events follow Delta State Art Department on Facebook or join our email list.ld

Details

Date:
October 5, 2019
Time:
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Organizer

Art Department
Phone:
662-846-4720
Email:
https://www.deltastate.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/art/