Exploring the vast diversity of Southern art
Plus: Storm update; The news of the week: First triplexes hit market; Judicial election continues in courts; Sheriff accused of abuse by former workers; How AI is transforming NC health care
Good morning! Today is Saturday, January 11, 2025. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger’s Weekend Edition.
Need to subscribe — or upgrade your Ledger e-newsletter subscription? Details here.
Today’s Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by Carnegie Private Wealth. At Carnegie Private Wealth, we bring clarity to complexity. Through thoughtful planning and personal attention, we transform your financial aspirations into actionable strategies. Providing you with less stress and greater confidence in your future.
Mint Museum’s ‘Southern/Modern’ yields surprises around every bend
The vast “Southern/Modern” exhibit occupies the top floor of the Mint Museum Uptown and runs through Feb. 2.
by Lawrence Toppman
In the 1950s, Lenny Bruce got laughs from snobby New Yorkers by saying he couldn’t imagine a nuclear scientist with a Southern accent. A decade earlier, he might have said “great painter.”
The Northeastern art establishment wrote off the land south of Baltimore as a backwater of folk art and fiddler’s conventions (both great in their ways) and decided grits ‘n’ gouache never went together.
The Mint Museum explodes that notion with “Southern/Modern – American Art, 1915-55.” This 100-piece show, which runs through Feb. 2, sprawls across the top floor of the uptown Mint. Room after room offers diversity of ideas, subjects, artists — by gender, age, race and region — along with blasts of visual and cerebral pleasure.
The show has a smaller cousin downstairs, a juried exhibit titled “Coined in the South: 2024,” which stays through April 27. But if you get museum fatigue after two hours, spend all your time right now absorbing the range of beauty, drama and provocation in “Southern/Modern.”
As the dates suggest, “modern” refers not to our era but to styles loosely classed in the first half of the 20th century as modern art. The influences of cubism, surrealism, expressionism and other trends run through this collection, which varies from realism to pure abstraction. (The Mint’s wall plaques, thorough and thoughtful but never verbose, reward your attention.)
The first painting you come to lets you know you’ll have to look closely. Marie Hull’s “An American Citizen” shows 89-year-old John Wesley Washington, wearing a red tie and blue-and-white shirt that link this dignified Mississippian to the U.S. flag. But peer beyond him to the rear of the painting, where a small red, white and blue cup seems to be full of pencils. Is he selling those in 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression? What does “citizen” mean to a man born into slavery who still can’t vote because of Jim Crow laws?
You’ll find the twin peaks of Piedmont painting, Charlotte-born Romare Bearden and Gastonia native John Biggers, side by side near the middle of the exhibit with depictions of the grinding nature of manual labor. The Mint has shown so much of Bearden’s work over 40 years, most of it collages, that it’s a pleasure to encounter his 1941 “Cotton Workers,” which subtly reminds us that African-Americans did the picking and white women got the mill jobs.
“Cotton Workers” by Charlotte-born Romare Bearden. (Courtesy of the Mint Museum)
That pales in impact next to Biggers’ unflinching “The Harvesters,” with bent elderly laborers alongside pregnant women who clutch hoes wearily, imagining the children in their bellies carrying on this tradition of unrewarding work. Biggers makes gnarled hands and elongated feet, symbols of toil’s toll on their bodies, more important than faces.
The adjective “Southern” has been interpreted loosely enough to include people who grew up here, went to schools or taught here, painted here or just passed through. Missouri-based Thomas Hart Benton qualifies peripherally with depictions of northern Arkansas, but I’d have hated to miss “Ploughing it Under,” where a sharecropper buries a successful crop to comply with a government decree to keep supplies down and prices up. He knows the landowner, not the laborer, will reap the federal subsidies.
Thomas Hart Benton’s “Ploughing It Under.” (Courtesy of the Mint Museum)
These artists strove to combat romantic piffle about the glorious Old South, often showing poor whites and blacks sharing the same hard lives. Richard Blauvelt Lee’s darkly fiery “Birmingham Steel Mill” looks like a set for “Hadestown.” In 1936, the year Margaret Mitchell won the National Book Award for the blather in “Gone With the Wind,” Hale Woodruff’s “Southland” showed a blistered region full of broken trees, a burned-out building and sterile fields.
I passed quickly through the abstracts — museum fatigue, you know — but paused long enough to appreciate the way Will Henry Stevens learned from and topped Kandinsky in “Untitled,” Walter Anderson turned autumn into a chaos of color in “Fall Foliage,” and Alice Ravenel Huger Smith riffed darkly on Hokusai in “Deep Water.”
I was saving myself for a last push through the socially conscious pieces, and I hit what may be my favorite: George Biddle’s “Folly Beach Pavilion.” I have collected shells at that beach near Charleston, which was segregated until the 1960s, and I winced at this piece, which told us about Jim Crow without images of cruelty or degradation.
Well-dressed white adults eat, sew, smoke and chat under an awning, as two children dash around their feet. To the side of this gathering sits a Black nanny, the only person looking at the viewer. Her tired eye seems to ask, “When will I have real equality with these people, not just to be allowed to swim here but to have the full measure of their respect?” I didn’t have an answer.
If You’re Going: “Southern/Modern” runs at the Mint Museum Uptown, 500 S. Tryon St., through Feb. 2. You can get $10 off parking in the Levine Center deck off Church Street or Brooklyn Village Avenue, if you get the ticket validated at the museum desk. The uptown Mint is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free from 5 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays. [Edited 1/11/25 to correct information on parking and hours]
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews about two times each month in the Charlotte Ledger. And check out this link for Toppman’s archive of reviews in the Ledger.
➡️ ‘Hamilton’ review: Check out Toppman’s review this week of “Hamilton,” playing through Feb. 2 at Belk Theater. (🔒)
Today’s supporting sponsor is Carnegie Private Wealth. At Carnegie Private Wealth, we bring clarity to complexity. Through thoughtful planning and personal attention, we transform your financial aspirations into actionable strategies. Providing you with less stress and greater confidence in your future.
❄️❄️❄️ Winter storm update: About 2,500 power outages, slick roads, 700+ flights canceled
The weather today is expected to be clear and cold, but the Charlotte region will still be dealing with the effects of the storm that blew through on Friday:
Power outages: About 2,500 Duke Energy customers in Mecklenburg were without power as of 7 a.m. Saturday, according to Duke’s outage map. Most were in west Charlotte and east Charlotte.
Roads: Roads are also likely to be icy this morning. Today’s high is forecast at 40 degrees, and temperatures are expected to drop below freezing again tonight, so remaining moisture could freeze again through Sunday morning.
Airport: Flight tracker FlightAware reported that 733 flights were canceled at Charlotte’s airport on Friday — 43% of departing flights and 47% of arriving flights.
Charlotte received 0.4 inches of snow, WCNC’s Brad Panovich said on social media, which is less than the 1-2 inches forecasters were anticipating.
This week in Charlotte: N.C. schools suffer data breach; county names two new execs; 49ers football coach signs 5-year contract; Earth Fare closing final Charlotte store
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
Parents protest accreditation switch, urge transparency: (Ledger🔒) Hundreds of Charlotte Catholic High School parents signed an online petition this week asking school administrators to be more transparent with them about a switch to a Catholic-based accreditation program and other issues at the school.
Major data breach hits N.C. schools: (WFAE) North Carolina public schools have been affected by a major data breach after a hacker attacked the PowerSchool program that tracks data on enrollment, grades, health and more.
Politics
N.C. judicial election ruling: (WRAL) A federal appeals court and the N.C. Supreme Court are planning to hear arguments to resolve November’s election to the state Supreme Court. Republican Jefferson Griffin has challenged more than 60,000 ballots in his race against Democrat Allison Riggs.
Local news
Charlotte’s first triplexes hit the market: (Ledger🔒) Some of Charlotte’s first triplexes under the new Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) are hitting the market at nearly $1M each, sparking concerns from residents over neighborhood compatibility and affordability despite the ordinance's goal of increasing housing options.
Two new Mecklenburg County execs: (Ledger🔒) Mecklenburg County has appointed Nick Walker as its new Park & Recreation Department director and Joanette Freeman as human resources director.
Former Mecklenburg Police employees allege years of abuse under McFadden: (Observer) Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden faces accusations from former employees of emotional abuse, retaliation and creating unsafe conditions in the county jail due to poor management. McFadden has declined to respond to the claims.
Business
Earth Fare closing: (Ledger) Earth Fare is closing its last Charlotte store in Ballantyne on or before Jan. 31.
Big boost for Charlotte software company: (Biz Journal) Charlotte-based Aiwyn, a technology partner for CPA firms, has secured $113M in funding led by KKR and Bessemer Venture Partners. Aiwyn was founded in 2020 and supports 130 of the top 500 CPA firms.
Sports
Coach’s salary: (Biz Journal) Tim Albin, the new head football coach of the Charlotte 49ers, signed a five-year deal with a $500,000 base salary and supplemental payments starting at $400,000 in 2025. His contract includes extensive perks, a $1.8M coaching staff budget and performance bonuses for milestones like conference championships.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
🩹How artificial intelligence is transforming health care: An NC Health News/Charlotte Ledger series
MONDAY: Doctors are turning to “virtual scribes” to take notes, raising privacy concerns
WEDNESDAY: How North Carolina health care providers are harnessing AI
FRIDAY: How state regulators are approaching the use of AI in health care
Top local stocks of 2024; Potential office tower for SouthPark?; Concerns over 'down-zoning' limits; New governor sworn in; Self-improvement email course
Wednesday (🔒)
First triplexes under UDO up for sale; New Mecklenburg County parks and human resources directors; Ally Financial plans layoffs; Day 23 of awaiting public records from city
Friday (🔒)
Charlotte Catholic parents protest accreditation change and urge transparency; Toppman reviews ‘Hamilton’; Earth Fare to close Ballantyne store; Holidays looked different in WNC
Ways of Life (🔒)
Trailblazer Peggy Culbertson was known for her quiet strength, deep compassion and decades of work championing diverse causes. Her husband, Bob, passed away shortly after her.
In the mountains, holiday traditions met a new reality; Names of victims released; $1.6B approved for N.C.; FEMA housing aid ends tomorrow; Unemployment rises fastest in U.S.; Asheville makes New York Times’s 2025 travel list
Need to sign up for this e-newsletter? We offer a free version, as well as paid memberships for full access to all 4 of our local newsletters:
The Charlotte Ledger is a locally owned media company that delivers smart and essential news. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
◼️ About The Ledger • Our Team • Website
◼️ Newsletters • Podcast • Newcomer Guide • A Better You email series
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Events Board • Merch Store • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn