The Herring-Kivette Gallery and Archives located in the Yancey County Public Library is featuring a six-month rotating retrospective of work by some of the thousands of students who came from across the U.S. to attend art schools in Yancey County from 1945 to 2015.
This exhibit, which can be viewed during regular library hours January 21-June 27, includes art by students from the 70-year period that two major art schools were in operation, along with numerous photos, newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia related to the schools.
The curators of this exhibit requests that anyone who attended either of the schools or who has paintings by students who attended the schools, to please contact the gallery at 828-284-3649 or email jodyyancey12@gmail.com. The exhibit will rotate artwork through June and is looking to accept on loan additional artwork for the show.
The long history of art schools in Burnsville began in the mid-1940s when artist Frank Stanley Herring was informed by the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida that the Wild Acres property in Mitchell County’s Little Switzerland was no longer available for lease and the classes he had taught there for years were canceled just before the 1945 session was to start.
Herring was a nationally-known painter and the leading U.S. watercolorist of his time. He studied at the Art Student League in New York and at both the Art Institute of Fine Arts and Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. For a number of years, he taught at the Grand Central School of Art in New York City and had one-man shows across the country. During his career, he painted portraits of many famous people, and a number of his works of southern Blacks are in The Smithsonian Collection in Washington, DC.
Herring, along with Edward Shorter of Columbus, Georgia, found a location for the classes in the old Carriage House behind the NuWray Hotel in Burnsville, with accommodations for students provided at the hotel.
Additional space was needed as the art school attracted more and more students and gained a national reputation. In 1949, Herring, his wife Frances, and Edward Shorter purchased the former Camp Mt. Mitchell for Boys from Edward Beeson. The 62-acre property just outside Burnsville off Pensacola Road included cabins, a dining hall, and other structures that could be used for the art school.
The three operated the Burnsville Painting Classes at SeeCelo until 1955 when the Herrings and J. Robert “Tex” Miller purchased Shorter’s part of the art school, which they operated until 1961 when illness forced Herring to stop teaching. The painting school tradition continued when Watson Nieland, a Herring student, built a studio a short distance behind the NuWray Hotel off Water Tank Road. After Nieland’s death, the property was purchased by Rush Ray, who encouraged Herring students Everett Kivette and John Bryans to start their own art school. Both had attended Herring’s classes in the late 1940s – 1960s. Kivette built Painting in the Mountains Studio one-mile north of Burnsville’s Town Square and the school began operation in 1966. Kivette and Bryans continued their partnership until 1972 when Kivette became sole proprietor of the school.
For decades, Painting in the Mountains attracted students from across the southeast and beyond. Kivette often brought guest artists to teach classes and lecture during the spring through fall sessions. He expanded the studio as attendance grew, and added student housing at the studio and at several properties he purchased in Burnsville over the years.
Some students were accomplished artists, while amateurs wanted to hone their skills, and others just wanted to learn to paint. All enjoyed the camaraderie and exploring Yancey’s beautiful and inspiring scenery, and many came back each year. Everett offered scholarships to local high school students including Mitzi Presnell and Randy Bartlett, and he generously encouraged his students and often provided financial assistance if they wanted to pursue an arts education.
Everett, a NC native, and his wife Ruth, a professor of literature at Barnard College in NY, loved Yancey County, the people, and the mountain culture. They wanted to celebrate and preserve that culture and honor the painting schools through the art gallery and archives, which currently houses hundreds of paintings, photographs, documents and other memorabilia.
Thanks to the generosity of Everett and Ruth Kivette, the gallery and archival storage room was included in plans for the new library that was to be located in the former Yancey College Institute building on School Circle in Burnsville. Theresa Coletta, then Regional Library director, and Jody Higgins, library board member and longtime friend of the Kivettes, worked for years with the couple to plan the gallery/archives and establish a trust held by the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina that would maintain the Herring-Kivette Gallery and Archives for many years to come.
Top photo:
Everett Kivette with a group of students from his Painting in the Mountains Studio on a plein air excursion to Ogle Meadows. The PITM red Jeep and Caboose that carried supplies was a familiar sight around Yancey County.
“Circus Comes to Burnsville” by Charles Lewis Woods, watercolor on paper, Burnsville Painting classes mid-1950s.
SeeCelo Burnsville Painting Classes was first located in the Carriage House behind NuWray Hotel then at the former 62-acre Camp Mt. Mitchell for Boys just outside Burnsville off Pensacola Road.
