"Beastly Feasts! A Mischievous Menagerie in Rhyme" at UNC–Chapel Hill's Wilson Library

Author Robert Forbes (also Vice President of Forbes magazine and President of ForbesLife magazine) has written a series of poetry books for children. The books are fabulously illustrated by British artist and master illustrator, Ronald Searle, famous for his book series about St. Trinian's School and for work appearing in the New Yorker, Le Monde and other publications. Forbes's recent book, Beastly Feasts! A Mischievous Menagerie in Rhyme (Overlook Juvenile, 2007) is the source for a current exhibition at Wilson Library at UNC in Chapel Hill. The poems and 38 original Searle drawings from the book are on display. The exhibit has been extended until October 31 and is highly recommended.

During a recent visit to North Carolina, Forbes gave a reading at the North Carolina Museum of Art and read to hundreds of children in local elementray schools. He also spoke at the Ackland Museum in connection with it's current show, Carolina Collects. Forbes, a photography collector, has artworks included in the Ackland exhibition. 

William R. Ferris Photography Exhibition

Ann Stewart Fine Art has curated an exhibition of Bill Ferris's photographs from his recently released book, Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voice of the Mississippi Blues. This multi-media show has been installed on the first floor of Davis Library on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and will run through December 31, 2010. In addition to an exhibition of the 45 photos included in the book, the show features a self-guided audio music program (via MP3 players which are available at the Circulation Desk) and will soon includes a video on the blues, produced by Ferris.

William Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is the author of Blues from the Delta. Rolling Stone magazine has named him among the top ten professors in the United States. In 2010, Ferris received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

Limited edition fine art prints of photographs by Bill Ferris will be available through Ann Stewart Fine Art in the coming year.

Christopher Sims Wins the 2010 Baum Award

Christopher Sims is this year's recipient of the prestigious Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers. The award, recently announced by the Baum Foundation and SF Camerawork, includes a solo exhibition at SF Camerawork and a $10,000 grant. The Sims exhibition will open in San Francisco on May 6, 2010.

The goal of the Baum Award is to promote photography as an art form by recognizing a talented and innovative artist working in photography. Christopher Sims was among the 50 artists whose work was considered by this year's jury, which included: Bruce Hainley, Artforum, Los Angeles; Erin O'Toole, department of photography, SFMOMA; and Jack von Euw, The Bancroft Library Pictorial Collection, UC Berkeley.

Sims's project, Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan, was first exhibited in 2008 in a show curated by Ann Stewart Fine Art, at UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, in Chapel Hill, NC. Since then, the work has been exhibited at the Houston Center for Photography, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Light Factory, and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. Theater of War will next be seen at the FotoFest Biennial in Houston from March 12 to April 15 and then in San Francisco at SF Camerawork beginning May 6.

New Book by William Ferris—Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

Photography exhibition October 15–November 30, 2009

A new, multimedia book by William Ferris has just been released by UNC Press. Photographs from the book, Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, will be shown in an exhibition, curated by Ann Stewart, at UNC's Center for the Study of the American South. The photographs will be on view through November 30th.

The Center for the Study of the American South is located at the Love House and Hutchins Forum at 410 East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

"Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs  of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music and a DVD of original film, the book features more than twenty interviews relating rank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South."—UNC Press

"Blues and jazz are America's most treasured gifts to the world. These powerful stories bring us face to face with the blues and remind us that the music used to survive in the face of adversity and terror."—Quincy Jones

"I reveled in these stories."—Toni Morrison
 

Summer and Fall 2009 Exhibitions

A number of exhibitions this summer and fall include work by artists represented by Ann Stewart Fine Art.

Works by Alex Harris, Margaret Sartor, Bill Bamberger, and Larry Schwarm, along with legendary masters William Gedney, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eudora Welty, Sally Mann and many others, are included in Beyond Beauty: Photographs from the Duke University Special Collections Library and the accompanying catalogue. The exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University includes photographic material from the 1860s to the present, selected from Duke's Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library. The exhibition will be on view through October 18.

The work of Christopher Sims continues to gain national recognition. Sims was awarded two prestigious exhibitions the summer: juror Catherine Edelman, director of the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, after viewing the work of 400 photographers submitted to the Griffin Museum of Photography in Boston, selected Sims's project on mock Iraqi and Afghan villages on U.S. Army bases for a two-person exhibition, with Dana Fritz. Sims's photographs from this project were also selected as one of six bodies of work by juror Trevor Schoonmaker, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher of Art at Duke University, for inclusion in the Light Factory's Annuale, which was on view in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Sims's work can be seen in the exhibition War on Terror: Inside/Out, a two-person exhibition with Stacy Pearsall, that has traveled to Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. The exhibition, which will run through November 28, was curated by Mark Sloan of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, where is was first shown earlier this year.

Lecture and Book Signing with Mona Kuhn

Ann Stewart Fine Art is pleased to announce a lecture and book signing by Mona Kuhn at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The lecture, organized by Ann Stewart Fine Art and the NC Museum of Art, will take place at the museum on Sunday, October 21.

LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING WITH MONA KUHN
North Carolina Museum of Art
Museum Auditorium
Sunday, October 21, 2007 / 2:30 p.m.

Mona Kuhn's lecture will cover an overview of her work, emphasizing how her creative process and a wide variety of influences play out in her current photographs. Followed by a question and answer period with Linda Dougherty, curator of contemporary art, and book signing. For more information about the lecture, please call 919.664.6808. For more information about the photographs, please call Ann Stewart Fine Art: 919.967.8817.