Experience the vibrant and expressive African-American art collection of Dr. and Mrs. Harold M. Rhodes, III, through September 10 at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum.

Although their collecting began in 1991, Dr. Rhodes explains that his keen interest in art has followed him all his life. 

“To me, art ignites the imagination and influences the decisions we make….It affects each one of us differently, and that is the beauty of art,” says Rhodes. 

Work by such prominent artists as Arianne King Comer, James Denmark, Tom Feelings, Tyrone Geter, Jonathan Green, Philip Simmons and Leo Twiggs will fill the museum’s galleries. All of the artists represented in the display are either native to or spent a significant time in their career working in South Carolina. The 80 selections from the Rhodes Collection range from paintings and sculpture to quilts, batiks and collage and are representative of the black Carolinian experience, from the dark times of enslavement and discrimination to those celebrating ancestry, faith, life, love, perseverance and heritage.