Welcome!
Founded in 1977, the Wellington B. Gray Art Gallery is an integral part of the School of Art and Design’s educational mission. The Gray Gallery provides educational programming for students and the community through six to eight exhibitions each year and numerous symposia and lectures by visiting artists and curators. The collections that the Gallery and School of Art and Design maintain includes a significant collection of western and central African art, Baltic ceramics, the Dwight M. Holland collection, a major and on-going donation of contemporary ceramics and a suite of Larry Rivers prints.
Next Exhibit:
Eighth Photographic Image Biennial Exhibition (January 24 - February 23, 2013
The Wellington B. Gray Gallery is proud to announce that the Eighth Photographic Image Biennial Exhibition will be on view in the School of Art and Design from January 24 through February 23, 2013. The exhibition juror, Sam Wang, will give a lecture on his work and announce awards on Thursday, January 24 at 5:00 PM in Speight Auditorium. An opening reception honoring the artists will follow in the Gray Gallery. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public.
Juror Sam Wang chose 80 works by 66 artists from 20 states for inclusion in the exhibition covering the range of photographic processes, including the now dominant digital imaging, traditional black and white and color photography, antiquarian and alternative processes.
Sam Wang is an internationally recognized photographer and educator. Born in Beijing, China in 1939, he came to the United States to attend Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., where he earned his BA in art and later attended the University of Iowa earning an MFA in 1966. From 1966 to 2006 Sam taught at Clemson University, retiring in 2006. While there he was named Alumni Distinguished Professor and helped establish the program in Digital Production Arts to prepare students for careers in digital animation. His work as an artist covers most formats and processes in photography, both black and white and alternative processes, and he was an early experimenter with digital imaging in the 1980s.
Most recently Sam was keynote speaker and workshop instructor at the 2011 Alternative Process Symposium in Toronto, Canada and he gave lectures on his work at the X’ian College of Fine Arts and the Nanjing Arts University in China in the summer of 2012. In 2010, the book he Sam Wang: Four Decades of Photographic Exploration was released, documenting his career of art photography and innovation. In 2012 Sam received the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Award for Individual given by the Governor and the South Carolina Arts Commission for service in the arts.
Tom Braswell, interim director, said of the Eighth Biennial sponsored by the Gray Gallery, “The first Photography and Digital Image Exhibition in the Wellington B. Gray Gallery was organized by Gil Leebrick, Director, and held in February 1997. The exhibition’s first juror, Olivia Parker, chose a show that was ecumenical in its diversity of photo-based media. Subsequent jurors Evon Streetman, Robert Fichter, Maggie Taylor, Mark Klett, Robert and Shana Parke Harrison, and Keith Carter continued the selection of a wide range of aesthetics for the exhibition. In keeping with that tradition, this year’s show is an overview of the pluralism of practice in contemporary photographic art.”
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The Wellington B. Gray Gallery is located off of Fifth and Jarvis Streets on the campus of East Carolina University in the Jenkins Fine Arts Center. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM and Saturday 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM. The gallery is closed for all University holidays. Jenkins Fine Arts Center is handicapped accessible. Parking for the lecture and reception is available in the lot surrounding Jenkins Fine Arts Center.
For more information, please contact Tom Braswell, Interim Gallery Director, at (252) 328-6336.
