Another generous gift of artworks to the new Art Museum of WVU by alumnus Harvey Peyton and his wife Jennifer includes works that speak to social and racial injustice from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Harvey and Jennifer Peyton will present “Confrontation at the Bridge” by Jacob Lawrence, along with several other works to the Art Museum of WVU during a special event on Thursday, March 26. The event begins at 2 p.m. at the Museum Education Center and is open to the public.

One of the pieces, by African American artist Jacob Lawrence, depicts marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama—known as Bloody Sunday—which occurred 50 years ago this month.

“This most recent gift from Harvey and Jennifer Peyton expands the depth of
the collection of the Art Museum of WVU,” said Art Museum Director Joyce Ice. “The Peytons have given a number of works of art to the Museum that speak to issues of social and racial injustice. These additional works demonstrate artists’ responses to the difficult questions of their times, which continue to reverberate in the present-day.

“Harvey and Jennifer’s generosity strengthens the educational and cultural resources
of the Art Museum of WVU as this work of art in particular contributes to the national
dialogue.”

“Jen and I have dedicated our collecting to the idea that visual art and the concept of social justice should go hand in hand,” Harvey Peyton said. “We hope these works, and others we have given and intend to give to the Art Museum of WVU, will enrich the idea of both art and community at the university long after we are gone.”

Ice said the work of art concerning the bridge at Selma references a turning point in the past while at the same time, reminding us that concerns for civil rights are very much a part of the present-day discussion in the United States.

Other works the Peytons are presenting to the Art Museum on March 26 include the oil painting “Waiting Room, South” by American artist Rosalee Berkowitz (1906-1990), a lithograph titled “Lynching (self-portrait with rope),” by Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), and a linocut called “Bessie Smith, Queen of the Blues” by Margaret Burroughs (1917-2010).

Rosalee Berkowitz was a native of Memphis, Tennessee who spent her adult life in Louisiana and Texas. The body of her work depicted the quiet dignity with which black men and women bore the indignities of a segregated South. “Waiting Room, South” was done in 1935 when the presence of a white woman in a “colored” waiting room was scandalous, if not dangerous. Rosalee did not care. She was an outspoken social progressive throughout her life.

Louis Lozowick was born in the Russian Empire where he studied at the Kiev Art School before coming to the United States in 1906, and continuing his studies at the National Academy of Design and Ohio State University. He worked as a painter and a printmaker. In “Lynching” the twisted face of the man is his own. As a Jewish man, he may have been referring to a commonality he felt with the prejudices experienced by African Americans.

Margaret Burroughs was an African-American artist from Chicago whose efforts were directed toward the exploration of the Black experience and to children, especially to their appreciation of their cultural identity and to their introduction and growing awareness of art. “Bessie Smith, Queen of the Blues,” was created in the 1940s and honors one of the most popular female blues singers of the era.

In 2013, Harvey and Jennifer Peyton donated another dozen valuable works of art to the Art Museum from their personal collection, along with a financial gift of $75,000 for the new Art Museum of WVU, currently being completed next door to the Creative Arts Center.

The Peytons’ contributions over the years have included not only prints, but also paintings, drawings and mixed-media works by artists such as George Ames Aldrich, Wayman Adams, Pauline Palmer, Emil Bisttram, William Robinson Leigh, Werner Drewes, Grant Wood, Carl Holty, Philip Evergood, Harry Sternberg, Riva Helfond and Bernarda Bryson-Shahn, among others.

Harvey Peyton’s gifts of works by West Virginia artist Blanche Lazzell helped make the Art Museum of WVU the holder of the largest public collection of Lazzell’s art.

Peyton graduated from WVU in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in English and received his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the WVU College of Law in 1974, where he was lead articles editor of the West Virginia Law Review and was honored with the Order of the Coif.

He has been practicing law for 35 years at Peyton Law Firm, which he founded, with offices in Nitro, Putnam County, West Virginia.

Peyton has served on the Board of Directors of The Avampato Discovery Museum at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston, the Board of Directors of the Putnam County Museum in the Community, and the Board of Directors of the Sunrise Museum in Charleston. He is a member of the Collections Committee of the Huntington Museum of Art and a former president of The Juliet Museum of Art Collectors Club.

Peyton’s art collection of nearly 200 pieces is mostly 20th century American art. Many of the works hang either in the Nitro offices of the Peyton Law Firm or are available for personal viewing or loan to academic, civic and cultural-interest groups.

See the Peyton Law Firm Online Art Gallery:http://www.peytonlawfirm.com/Art-Collection/

Peyton’s contribution was made in conjunction with A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University. The $1 billion comprehensive campaign being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of the University runs through December 2017.

-WVU-

cl/03/24/15

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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