New Acquisition on View at the Gibbes Museum of Art

Environmental Photographer J. Henry Fair Donates Work of Art

CHARLESTON, SC – July 17, 2012 – The Gibbes Museum of Art has received a work of art from Charleston native J. Henry Fair, whose photographs were exhibited at the museum in a solo exhibition in 2011. The photograph, titled Bacon, Warsaw, N.C., is now a part of the museum’s permanent collection and is currently on view in The Charleston Story exhibition.
 
“We are so pleased to have one of Fair’s large-scale aerial photographs in our collection. The 2011 exhibition J. Henry Fair: Industrial Scars evoked much conversation about his abstract images that are both aesthetically pleasing and unsettling in their depictions of the changing southern landscape,” noted Gibbes Executive Director Angela Mack.
 
J. Henry Fair moved from Charleston to New York City in 1980 to pursue a career in photography. For decades he enjoyed success making portraits of many of the world’s notable singers, musicians, and performers—his clientele has ranged from Yo-Yo Ma to Emmylou Harris. However, his passion for the environment became a driving force in his career and in 2000 he launched the Industrial Scars project. Drawn to sites where the land has been drastically changed by the mining or manufacturing of coal, petroleum, fertilizer, or paper pulp, Fair documents the effects of industrial processes on our landscapes.
 
A self-described environmental activist, Fair originally set out to record these sites to inspire both environmental reforms and changes to consumer behavior; however, while flying above acres of toxic wastes spilling into waterways and covering the landscape, he discovered an unexpected beauty in his subject.  He began to see intriguing shapes, patterns, and mesmerizing colors in the wastelands. Fair’s photographs became more abstract, and surprisingly pleasing to the eye. It is this unsettling sense of beauty found in tracts of bauxite waste, coal ash, and phosphate discharge that has drawn worldwide attention to his work and to his mission.
 
In 2011, the Gibbes Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of Fair’s photographs highlighting images that he has taken of industrial sites in the southeastern United States over the last five years. As a result, the artist generously donated one of his images to the museum. Bacon depicts a hog fecal waste lagoon in Warsaw, North Carolina, that formed as a result of waste run-off from industrial hog farming.
 

About the Gibbes Museum of Art
Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the Gibbes Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 1905.  Located in Charleston’s historic district, the Gibbes houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works, principally American with a Charleston or Southern connection, and presents special exhibitions throughout the year. In addition, the museum offers an extensive complement of public programming and educational outreach initiatives that serve the community by stimulating creative expression and improving the region’s superb quality of life. Highlights of the Gibbes collection can now be viewed on Google Art Project at www.googleartproject.com.