Tunnelvision
Blue Sky

Geech, 2009
Jonathan Green

Three Flags
Jasper Johns

Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
portrait by Marie Danforth

Washington Monument
Robert Mills

Artists

Blue Sky

Born Warren Edward Johnson in Columbia in 1938, Blue Sky is now an internationally known painter and sculptor. He created the state's first large scale outdoor mural Tunnelvision in 1975, which is now a Columbia landmark.

Jonathan Green

Born in Gardens corner near Beaufort, Jonathan Green achieved world acclaim with his portraits of Gullah life in the Lowcountry. He is considered by art critics to be one of the most important painters of the southern experience. The Columbia City Ballet created a ballet based on his art.

Jasper Johns

Born in 1930, Jasper Johns grew up in Allendale, SC, and studied at the University of South Carolina. Johns emerged as force in the American art scene in the late 1950s. His richly worked paintings of maps, flags and targets led the artistic community away from Abstract Expressionism toward a new emphasis on the concrete. Johns laid the groundwork for both Pop Art and Minimalism. Today, as his prints and paintings set record prices at auction.

Larry Lebby

This Dixiana native was born in 1950. Lebby's art is world renown and uses many mediums including oils, acrylics, watercolors, and even Worcestershire sauce, tea and berry juice. His ballpoint pen drawing of President Jimmy Carter hung in the White House from 1976 – 1980.

Ann Worsham Richardson

An internationally known wildlife artist, Ann Worsham Richardson was born in 1922 near Turbeville. She began drawing animals as a child and today her watercolors of birds and flora are in great demand. Both presidents Carter and Regan have collected her work. She lives outside of Charleston on an estate where she has a sanctuary where she rehabilitates injured birds.

Elizabeth O'Neill Verner

Best known for her pastels of the buildings, people and landscapes of the Lowcountry, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner was born in Charleston in 1883. She was a central figure in the Charleston Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s, a flowering of art, culture, literature and historic preservation. Elizabeth O'Neill Verner was posthumously honored by the South Carolina Arts Commission when it created the annual Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Awards. Presented to arts organizations, patrons, artists, members of the business community, and government entities for outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina, the award is considered the highest honor awarded to the arts in SC.

Architects

Robert Mills

This South Carolinian, born in Charleston, was appointed America's first federal architect by President Thomas Jefferson in 1830. He designed the first fireproof building in America, the US Treasury Building, the US Post Office and the Washington Monument.