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RICHMOND’S ‘HISTORIC GARDEN WEEK’ BEGINS APRIL 16

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RICHMOND, VA. — The exceptional houses and gardens of Virginia’s leading citizens, past and present, will be open for visiting during Historic Garden Week April 16–24.

Properties include the residence and gardens of Virginia’s governor and his family, and houses and gardens associated with Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, John D. Rockefeller, Jr, and key players in the American Revolution and Civil War. More than 250 houses, gardens and historic landmarks will be featured on more than across the state during the last full week of April.

Houses on tour span the full range of Virginia’s rich history, from the mid Seventeenth Century to the early Twenty-First Century, and represent every major architectural style: rural, suburban, city, hilltop, riverside, beachfront and historic James River plantations. Gardens range from charming, walled city retreats to expansive formal parterres, suburban backyard landscapes, and water, cutting, boxwood, herb and “secret” gardens.

A schedule of tour dates is available by accessing the “Garden Week” website at www.VAGardenWeek.org or by calling 804-644-7776. Prices for tour tickets range from $10 to $35 per event. Tickets may be purchased on the day of the tour at any of the properties open, at designated information centers, and online. Tours will be held on their scheduled days, rain or shine.

1-28 EXHIBIT GERTRUDE MORGAN

FOR JANUARY 28 –

EXHIBIT OF SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN OPENS FEBRUARY 10 AT INTUIT –

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CHICAGO, ILL. — Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art will present the critically acclaimed exhibition “Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan” from February 11 through May 28.

Intuit is at 756 North Milwaukee Avenue; gallery hours are noon to 5 pm Wednesday–Saturday and admission is free. The opening reception is on Thursday, February 10, from 5 to 8 pm, at Intuit.

The exhibition was curated by William A. Fagaly, former director at the New Orleans Art Museum, and arranged by the American Folk Art Museum in New York. It is the first major museum retrospective devoted to Gertrude Morgan, 1900–1980, an African American painter who today is considered one of the most important self-taught artists of our time. This show signals Intuit’s effort to breathe creative life back into a politically correct culture by presenting the artist in a way that parallels the way Sister Gertrude herself took ownership of her identity — as an artist, an African American, and a woman.

Morgan painted on absolutely anything that was handy — paper, wood, Styrofoam trays, window shades, mixing acrylics, poster paint, watercolors, crayons and ballpoint pen. Then she set up camp to show her work in the heart of the New Orleans’ French Quarter and performed creative and passionate public sermons in a deep chantlike voice, self-accompanied by guitar or tambourine, for local passers-by who grew to cherish her charismatic persona. She was a familiar figure in town and her ubiquitous status as a beloved visionary is expertly documented in this exhibition with biographical photographs and more than 100 paintings, drawings, and objects.

For information, 312-243-9088 or www.art.org.