ETSU’s Reece Museum wins Award of Excellence
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — East Tennessee State University’s (ETSU) Reece Museum won an Award of Excellence for a long-running exhibition.
Awarded by the Tennessee Association of Museums, the “An Exuberant Spirit: The Sammie L. Nicely Collection” has been running at the Reece Museum since 2023.
The collection was curated to show the depth of the full collection, “An Exuberant Spirit,” which featured 85 artworks from the museum’s permanent collection.
“Named for artist Sammie L. Nicely, this growing collection of post-modern and contemporary art explored Black imagery and themes, representing a variety of media forms,” ETSU said in release.
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The Reece Museum received 50 artworks from Nicely’s collection in 2021. Since then, the museum has collected pieces to support Nicely’s legacy as an artist and educator.
3,846 visitors experienced the “Exuberant Spirit” collection in person, making it one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions, ETSU said.
A grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program helped the exhibition reach beyond the museum’s gallery.
The grant supported the following, according to ETSU:
The ongoing development of a digital exhibition that will feature all 197 artifacts in the Nicely Collection
The installation of the “Exuberant Spirit” exhibition
Resources to develop educational programming opportunities such as artist workshops, panel discussions, gallery tours and an upcoming student art camp.
Deeper research into the art and artists included in the collection, which has led to opportunities to collect oral histories, produce academic journal articles and present at the American Association of Museums annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland
The Sammie L. Nicely Collection can be viewed on the Reece Museum’s collections portal here.
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