The MACC presents between six and eight local, regional and international exhibitions every year. Check them out.
Stas Namin is a legend, the one true rock star of Eastern European music and art. Since the 1960s, Stas has experimented with almost every creative medium imaginable, earning him a level of critical and popular acclaim that perhaps no other contemporary Eastern European artist has achieved.
As one of the only musical superstars in all of Eastern Europe, Stas has taken his cultural status seriously and used it to promote freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom from government oppression and the growth of music and art across the continent. It’s no surprise that Stas has often been referred to as “the Bob Dylan of Russia.”
A highly accomplished visual artist, Stas will be the featured artist for the MACC’s Fourth Annual Moonlight & Magnolias. His evocative paintings featuring many of the great rock stars of the 1960s, ‘70s and beyond will be on display in the MACC’s galleries. These same works have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Russia and around the world.
OPENING EVENT – MEET THE ARTIST – Sunday, April 30 – 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center presents some of the world’s greatest art in galleries that are intimate and inviting. Subscribe to our newsletter and discover the magic that awaits.
Bill Puryear, the Sage of Sumner County, was a Vanderbilt University graduate, a Korean War veteran, and an accomplished artist and writer. During his time with the Army in Korea, he served as editor of his regimental newspaper and as a correspondent for Stars & Stripes. He taught at Vanderbilt, Fisk University, and University of Tennessee Nashville. He was founding Treasurer of Nashville Memorial Hospital and of Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, and he served as Chairman Emeritus of The Memorial Foundation.
Puryear retired in 2000 as Senior Partner of the CPA firm he first founded in 1962 in order to devote full time to painting and writing. He put his time to good use and wrote multiple books. His first book is a historic trilogy, The Founding of the Cumberland Settlements. It was subsequently named Book of the Year by The Tennessee Historical Commission.
His art has been displayed in Cheekwood, the Parthenon and the Tennessee State Museum. It’s also on display in many corporate and private collections. His visual art works include landscapes, historical subjects, and musicians, among other things, comprising more than 200 works in watercolor and oils. His favorite place to paint was his private studio overlooking the Cumberland River near Gallatin.
Puryear, who passed away in February at age 89, played an indispensable role in the founding of the Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center. Simply put, the MACC would not have been here without him. To celebrate his extraordinary life and his important Tennessee-inspired art, the MACC will present this retrospective of his art. The exhibit will feature approximately 45 of his original paintings, prints and giclee.
There will be an opening reception on Father’s Day featuring wine and light fare. The event will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 18. For more information, call (615) 822-0789.
Nick Ut is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer who shot the iconic Vietnam War photo often referred to as “Napalm Girl”. He joined the AP in Vietnam after his older brother, who was a war photographer, was killed in combat.
During his time covering the war, there were many close calls. When the Americans and South Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1970, he was wounded three times: in his stomach, his left leg and in his chest. The highlight of Ut’s career came on 8 June 1972, when he photographed Kim Phuc running and screaming down route 1 after her village had been bombed with Napalm by South Vietnamese planes. Immediately after making the photo, he rushed the girl to a hospital, which saved her life.
Ut will be on hand at the MACC for the opening of his exhibit, which will feature many of his best-known photographs. Kim Phuc is scheduled to appear with him.
For more information, call (615) 822-0789.
The whimsical ceramic works of Pablo Picasso return to the MACC this fall for the exhibit “Master in Clay, Part II.” On loan from the Park West Museum in Southfield, Mich., the exhibit will feature more than 60 of the master’s highly stylized ceramics. These works were first exhibited at the MACC in 2019.
Picasso was already 64-years-old and an internationally known master painter when he decided to make a serious study of ceramics. In designing his elaborate plates, bowls, pitchers, vases and other functional clay objects, the legendary artist allowed his imagination free rein.
His embellishments were often playful, depicting Greek mythological figures and bullfighting scenes, along with the faces of some of his friends and acquaintances. These works delighted visitors at the MACC in 2019. More than 10,000 people attended the exhibit from across the United States.
For more information about “Master in Clay, Part II,” please call (615) 822-0789.
Before 1931, there were many different depictions of Santa Claus around the world, including a tall gaunt man and an elf —there was even a scary Claus.
But in 1931, Coca-Cola commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa for Christmas advertisements. Those paintings established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features, including rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines.
The MACC will ring in the holidays with Sundblom’s famed painting of Jolly Old St. Nicholas.
For more information, call (615) 822-0789.
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