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Page 1: Sarah Gillespie Art Collection

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Above, Sarah Gillespie Gallery Curator, Iris Easterling,presents Earl W. Wilson’s ‘Pickin’ Cotton,’ one of thepaintings in the Gillespie Collection.

Right, rendering of the completed Smith-Rouse LibraryExpansion project at William Carey University inHattiesburg. The Library is the new home for theGillespie Art Gallery.

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Sarah Gillespie spent her lifeassembling what some artexperts consider to be the mostcomplete collection of art pro-duced by Mississippians in the20th century. It was nearly lostwhen Hurricane Katrina rav-aged the Mississippi Gulf Coaston Aug. 29, 2005, destroying

the William Carey Universitycampus in Gulfport, where thecollection had been displayedsince 1999 in a beachfrontgallery.

Soon, Gillespie’s “orphans,”as she called the more than 450works by artists includingWalter Anderson, Wyatt

Waters, Ethel Wright Mohamedand Marie Hull, will move intoa new gallery on theHattiesburg campus of WilliamCarey University designed justfor them.

Unfortunately, Gillespie didnot live to see the opening ofthe new gallery. She died in

orphansOF THE STORM

GILLESPIE’S

STORY BY ROBYN JACKSONPHOTOS COURTESY WILLIAM CAREY UNIVERSITY

SARAH GILLESPIE COLLECTION

SARAH GILLESPIE

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Hattiesburg on Sept. 1, 2008, at theage of 88, but Iris Easterling, curatorof the Sarah Gillespie Collection,believes she would have been proudof the new gallery, a wing of theSmith Rouse Library which is slated toopen in March.

“It is a miracle that the completecollection was not destroyed,”Easterling said. “Each piece had to beremoved from its frame, assessed by aprofessional and prepared for exhib-

Left, Painting by Theora HamblettRight, ‘The Baptism’ by Ethel WrightMohammedBelow, ‘Running from Policeman’ byWilliam Hollingsworth, Jr.

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art: sarah gil lespie gallery of art

it.”Saving the paintings included

placing them in a freezer tostop the growth of mold untilthey could be professionallycleaned.

Easterling was honored forher Herculean efforts to savethe collection during a ceremo-ny last summer hosted by theSoutheastern MuseumsConference in New Orleans.First Lady Laura Bush recog-nized 11 honorees at a specialreception held in their honor.Easterling, who also serves asassistant professor of English atCarey, was recognized for hertireless work in not only mov-

ing the collection from the ruinsof the gallery after Katrina, andfor her work in cleaning andrestoring the pieces that weredamaged by the storm surgeand the mold that followed, butalso for her continued work inprocuring grants from theNational Endowment for theHumanities, the ConservationAssessment Program, SEMC,private donors and other foun-dations.

Easterling was assisted in herrestoration project by a consult-ant paid for by a grant from theSoutheastern MuseumsConference, a nonprofit organi-zation that seeks to increase

education and professionaldevelopment opportunities. Theconsultant helped Easterlingwith the preparation of the col-lection for display in the newgallery and also compiled theinformation and photographsneeded to produce a catalogshowcasing the collection.Previous catalogs weredestroyed by Katrina, alongwith acquisition informationand artist biographies.

Carey’s collection was one ofonly five in the state thatreceived part of a $225,000Hurricane Relief Award. Theothers were the Ohr-O’KeefeMuseum of Art and MaritimeSeafood Industry Museum,both in Biloxi, Lynn MeadowsDiscovery Center in Gulfportand the Walter AndersonMuseum of Art in OceanSprings.

Gillespie, the daughter of aHattiesburg lumberman,William Gunn Gillespie, andhis wife, Sallie Keith Gillespie,was born in 1920 and raised ina house on Walnut Streetwhere she lived until herdeath. She graduated fromSophie Newcomb College inNew Orleans, the women’s col-lege of Tulane University. In1943, she began a career as areporter with the HattiesburgAmerican that would span twodecades. She also served aspresident of the originalHattiesburg Home and GardenClub and was a member ofJunior Auxiliary, Red Crossand Girl Scouts boards, and theSacred Heart Catholic Church

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board, parish council andbuilding committee.

She had intense interest inliterature, botany and birding,but she will be rememberedfor her passion for art. Shebegan collecting in 1943, pick-ing up her first work for $5 atan art show sponsored by theMississippi Art Association atthe old Hattiesburg Library onMain Street. She focused onworks by Mississippi artists.Many, like Hull, Anderson andKate Freeman Clark wereestablished, well-knownartists, but Gillespie alsochampioned emerging artists,befriending many of them overthe years.

“Part of the delight Sarahfound in collecting was the peo-ple she got to know,” said PattyHall, director of theHattiesburg Arts Council, and aclose friend of Gillespie’s.“She went to their homes andbought art off their front porch-es. They became part of a hugefamily. They became veryimportant in her life.”

Hall recalls helping Gillespietrack down emerging artists invarious parts of the state thatshe had read about. Sometimes,after Gillespie would returnfrom a trip, she would pull intothe parking lot behind theHattiesburg Cultural Center,where Hall’s office is located,and hold what she called “atrunk show.” She would openher car’s trunk and show Hallthe artworks she had pur-chased.

“Sarah taught me so much,

and I just wish I had listenedbetter and taken better notes,”Hall said. “You could tell shewas a serious collector. Whenan artist knew their work wasin her collection, they felt likethey had made it.”

In 2000, Gillespie was namedthe recipient of the Arts PatronAward category of theGovernor’s Award forExcellence in the Arts.

Gillespie favored landscapes,but at the time of her death, shewas working actively toincrease her collection ofAfrican-American works. Infact, Gillespie was an avid artcollector even when she was nolonger able to live on her ownor travel around the state byherself. She was living at TheLoyalton, an assisted livingfacility in Hattiesburg, whenHurricane Katrina struck, andwas evacuated along with otherresidents to a facility inMeridian, where she quicklypersuaded someone to take her

to an art gallery.“She bought seven paintings

as an evacuee a week afterKatrina,” Hall said.

Gillespie was present whenHall and Easterling and a fewothers first surveyed the dam-age to her collection afterKatrina, and she was visiblydistressed to know that some ofher watercolors, including oneby Walter Anderson, did notsurvive, but Hall said Gillespielived long enough to know thatmost of the works will soonhave a beautiful new home.

“I’m so glad she was able tosee so much of her work stabi-lized,” Hall said.

Left, a painting by artistMarie Hull

Above, Walter InglesAnderson’s O’Malley andKitten


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