Sarah Gillespie Art Collection

Above, Sarah Gillespie Gallery Curator, Iris Easterling, presents Earl W. Wilson’s ‘Pickin’ Cotton,’ one of the paintings in the Gillespie Collection. Right, rendering of the completed Smith-Rouse Library Expansion project at William Carey University in Hattiesburg. The Library is the new home for the Gillespie Art Gallery.

44 • south mississippi scene

orphans

GILLESPIE’S

OF THE STORM SARAH GILLESPIE

Sarah Gillespie spent her life assembling what some art experts consider to be the most complete collection of art produced by Mississippians in the 20th century. It was nearly lost when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying

the William Carey University campus in Gulfport, where the collection had been displayed since 1999 in a beachfront gallery. Soon, Gillespie’s “orphans,” as she called the more than 450 works by artists including Walter Anderson, Wyatt

Waters, Ethel Wright Mohamed and Marie Hull, will move into a new gallery on the Hattiesburg campus of William Carey University designed just for them. Unfortunately, Gillespie did not live to see the opening of the new gallery. She died in

STORY BY ROBYN JACKSON PHOTOS COURTESY WILLIAM CAREY UNIVERSITY SARAH GILLESPIE COLLECTION

Hattiesburg on Sept. 1, 2008, at the age of 88, but Iris Easterling, curator of the Sarah Gillespie Collection, believes she would have been proud of the new gallery, a wing of the Smith Rouse Library which is slated to open in March. “It is a miracle that the complete collection was not destroyed,” Easterling said. “Each piece had to be removed from its frame, assessed by a professional and prepared for exhib-

Left, Painting by Theora Hamblett Right, ‘The Baptism’ by Ethel Wright Mohammed Below, ‘Running from Policeman’ by William Hollingsworth, Jr.

art: sarah gillespie gallery of art

it.” Saving the paintings included placing them in a freezer to stop the growth of mold until they could be professionally cleaned. Easterling was honored for her Herculean efforts to save the collection during a ceremony last summer hosted by the Southeastern Museums Conference in New Orleans. First Lady Laura Bush recognized 11 honorees at a special reception held in their honor. Easterling, who also serves as assistant professor of English at Carey, was recognized for her tireless work in not only mov-

ing the collection from the ruins of the gallery after Katrina, and for her work in cleaning and restoring the pieces that were damaged by the storm surge and the mold that followed, but also for her continued work in procuring grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Conservation Assessment Program, SEMC, private donors and other foundations. Easterling was assisted in her restoration project by a consultant paid for by a grant from the Southeastern Museums Conference, a nonprofit organization that seeks to increase

education and professional development opportunities. The consultant helped Easterling with the preparation of the collection for display in the new gallery and also compiled the information and photographs needed to produce a catalog showcasing the collection. Previous catalogs were destroyed by Katrina, along with acquisition information and artist biographies. Carey’s collection was one of only five in the state that received part of a $225,000 Hurricane Relief Award. The others were the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art and Maritime Seafood Industry Museum, both in Biloxi, Lynn Meadows Discovery Center in Gulfport and the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs. Gillespie, the daughter of a Hattiesburg lumberman, William Gunn Gillespie, and his wife, Sallie Keith Gillespie, was born in 1920 and raised in a house on Walnut Street where she lived until her death. She graduated from Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans, the women’s college of Tulane University. In 1943, she began a career as a reporter with the Hattiesburg American that would span two decades. She also served as president of the original Hattiesburg Home and Garden Club and was a member of Junior Auxiliary, Red Cross and Girl Scouts boards, and the Sacred Heart Catholic Church

board, parish council and building committee. She had intense interest in literature, botany and birding, but she will be remembered for her passion for art. She began collecting in 1943, picking up her first work for $5 at an art show sponsored by the Mississippi Art Association at the old Hattiesburg Library on Main Street. She focused on works by Mississippi artists. Many, like Hull, Anderson and Kate Freeman Clark were established, well-known artists, but Gillespie also championed emerging artists, befriending many of them over the years. “Part of the delight Sarah found in collecting was the people she got to know,” said Patty Hall, director of the Hattiesburg Arts Council, and a close friend of Gillespie’s. “She went to their homes and bought art off their front porches. They became part of a huge family. They became very important in her life.” Hall recalls helping Gillespie track down emerging artists in various parts of the state that she had read about. Sometimes, after Gillespie would return from a trip, she would pull into the parking lot behind the Hattiesburg Cultural Center, where Hall’s office is located, and hold what she called “a trunk show.” She would open her car’s trunk and show Hall the artworks she had purchased. “Sarah taught me so much,

and I just wish I had listened better and taken better notes,” Hall said. “You could tell she was a serious collector. When an artist knew their work was in her collection, they felt like they had made it.” In 2000, Gillespie was named the recipient of the Arts Patron Award category of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Gillespie favored landscapes, but at the time of her death, she was working actively to increase her collection of African-American works. In fact, Gillespie was an avid art collector even when she was no longer able to live on her own or travel around the state by herself. She was living at The Loyalton, an assisted living facility in Hattiesburg, when Hurricane Katrina struck, and was evacuated along with other residents to a facility in Meridian, where she quickly persuaded someone to take her

to an art gallery. “She bought seven paintings as an evacuee a week after Katrina,” Hall said. Gillespie was present when Hall and Easterling and a few others first surveyed the damage to her collection after Katrina, and she was visibly distressed to know that some of her watercolors, including one by Walter Anderson, did not survive, but Hall said Gillespie lived long enough to know that most of the works will soon have a beautiful new home. “I’m so glad she was able to see so much of her work stabilized,” Hall said.

Left, a painting by artist Marie Hull Above, Walter Ingles Anderson’s O’Malley and Kitten

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