The South Arkansas Arts Center is pleased to host The South’s Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson, an exhibition of 40 works by American artist, Walter Inglis Anderson. The exhibition will be on display in the galleries at SAAC May 16-July 30, with a public reception on the evening of May 16. The galleries are open to the public, always free of charge, Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm.

The South’s Most Elusive Artist is organized by the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) and draws from WAMA’s Permanent Collection and that of the Estate of Walter Anderson. The exhibition includes rarely seen watercolors, block prints, ceramics, and sketches alongside some of Anderson’s most recognizable and iconic works.

“Walter Anderson was a wholly unique and prodigious creator who does not fit neatly into any one category of art,” said Julian Rankin, Executive Director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. “He was as talented in watercolor as he was in print making, as deft an illustrator as he was a muralist.”

Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) was born in New Orleans, LA but spent the majority of his life in the small seaside town of Ocean Springs. He was classically trained as an artist at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before returning to the Gulf Coast. Often shunning the spotlight, the intrepid artist preferred the solitude of nature – especially that found on Horn Island, a barrier island located twelve miles offshore of Ocean Springs.

Anderson’s artwork did not receive much acclaim his lifetime, with notable exceptions of exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in Memphis, TN. Today, Walter Anderson is recognized as one of the seminal figures of Southeastern American art. In 2003, a retrospective of Anderson’s work was shown at the Smithsonian Institution and more than a dozen volumes of story and scholarship have been published in the years following his death by the University Press of Mississippi.

“The work of Walter Anderson celebrates his natural surroundings in a way that speaks directly to us in South Arkansas,” says SAAC executive director Laura Allen. “We are honored to host this exhibition, and we are looking forward to introducing Anderson’s work to a whole new generation.”

To see this exhibition in person, visit SAAC at 110 East Fifth Street, El Dorado, Arkansas beginning May 16. For more information on “The South’s Most Elusive Artist” or to schedule a school group or special tour, please call SAAC at 870-862-5474.

About the Walter Anderson Museum of Art

WAMA opened in 1991 in historic Ocean Springs, MS, and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. WAMA’s mission is to empower lifelong curiosity and connection to the natural world through the art of Walter Anderson and kindred artists. WAMA is dedicated to the celebration of the works of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), American master; and to his brothers, Peter Anderson (1901-1984), master potter and founder of Shearwater Pottery; and James McConnell Anderson (1907-1998), noted painter and ceramist. Learn more at www.walterandersonmuseum.org.