THE DECORATIVE EXPERIENCE

The Museum's newest permanent gallery, The Decorative Experience showcases beautiful objects from around the world.

The unifying theme is that decoration occurs in all cultures over the last 30,000 years. Visitors can enjoy a diverse array of finely made and beautifully embellished objects which are grouped by material class. From American cut glass to European and Chinese porcelains to African wood carvings, there is something here to delight every eye.

A SAMPLING OF OBJECTS IN THE EXHIBITION

SHELL GORGET (PENDANT) WITH RATTLESNAKE MOTIF. (97K) Late Mississippian period, circa AD 1450. Diameter 5.2 inches.

ANGEL. (93K) Hand-carved wood covered in gesso, with gold leaf. 15th century Italian style, artist unknown.

PIERROT. (43K) Majolica; hand-decorated in enamel. Italy, early 20th century.

STERLING SILVER PUNCH BOWL. (17K) Tiffany and Company, circa 1896.

WILLIAM EDMONDSON SCULPTURES

The McClung Museum has in its collections three sculptures by William Edmondson (1874-1951). Edmondson was a native of Nashville, Tennessee, and was the first African American artist to be featured in a solo show at New York's Museum of Modern Art (1937). Robert Bishop, the late director of the Museum of American Folk Art, declared Edmondson to be "one of the outstanding folk carvers -- if not the outstanding one -- of the twentieth century."

One of the McClung Museum sculptures, Preacher, has recently returned from a traveling exhibit, The Art of William Edmondson, organized by the Cheekwood Museum of Nashville, Tennessee, that traveled also to New York City, Rochester, Atlanta, and Orlando. In addition to the exhibit catalog, it has also been illustrated in several publications, most recently in African Americans and the Bible, published by Continuum Press.

WILLIAM EDMONDSON SCULPTURES. (92K)

In the McClung Museum's exhibition The Decorative Experience, both Edmondson's Preacher and Bride are on display -- as pictured in the photograph above.

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