Saturday, February 18 will be Ellis Wilson Day in Mayfield, his hometown. Several community organizations have come together to celebrate the life and work of this important African American artist. Several events are planned to begin on February 15 and continue until the end of the month. The first part of the celebration will be an exhibition of three of Wilson’s paintings as well as works by other African American artists from the Jackson Purchase region that has been organized by the Icehouse Gallery. The exhibit will be in the Graves County Public Library from February 15 until the 28th. It is free and open to the public.
The Jackson Purchase Historical Society will meet at the Graves County Public Library beginning at 10:30 am on Saturday the 18th for a program on A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson, a new children’s book on Wilson written by Jayne Moore Waldrop and illustrated by Michael McBride. In addition to Waldrop and McBride speaking about the book and Ellis Wilson, a group of children who have read it will discuss the book. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing by the author and illustrator at the meeting. The book is published by Shadelandhouse Modern Press and is available through normal online booksellers as well as directly from smpbooks.com.
The Jackson Purchase Historical Society meeting is open to the public at no cost and will be available via Zoom for those who are unable to attend in person. Registration is not required for the in-person meeting, but it is for Zoom. The Jackson Purchase Historical Society meeting is open to the general public at no cost and will be available by Zoom for those who are unable to attend in person. Registration is not required for the in-person meeting, but it is for Zoom. Follow the link that here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkde6qpzIiH9IO-v-oJq6Al622_xkWiNkn
On Monday, February 20 Jayne Moore Waldrop will return to the Graves County Public Library for story hour on President’s Day to read the book to children who will also have a chance to color Wilson’s artwork beginning at 1:00 pm.
Ellis Wilson was born in Mayfield in 1899 and began drawing as a young boy. After briefly attending Kentucky State University in Frankfort, he enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied painting. After completing his studies, he moved to Harlem in New York City where he became part of the Harlem Renaissance, a significant flowering of African American cultural expression in the arts and literature. Wilson was a member of the Harlem Artists Guild. He twice was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to support his work in painting African American life. In 1948 the Graves County Public Library hosted an exhibit of his work. More recently, a significant exhibition of his work was organized at the Clara Eagle Gallery at Murray State University in 2000 and shown later that year at the University of Kentucky Art Museum. The catalogue for that exhibit is available from the University Press of Kentucky.
Jayne Moore Waldrop has her bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Kentucky and an MFA in Creative Writing from Murray State. Her collection of short stories, Drowned Town, published in 1921, is one of twenty books selected for the 2022 Great Group Reads list by the Women’s National Book Association and was named the 2021 INDIES Fiction Book of the Year silver award winner. She has held a number of fellowships and residencies.
Michael McBride earned his undergraduate degree in art, from Tennessee State University and his graduate degree in painting from Illinois State University. Currently, he is an instructor of art at Tennessee State University and has been the lead artist on many community-based mural projects in Nashville, Tennessee. McBride was featured in Visions of My People, sixty years of African American art in Tennessee.