After lifelong art collectors Marjorie and Richard Lowrance bequeathed their extensive Steffen Thomas art collection to the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art (STMA) in Buckhead, it officially became part of the museum’s permanent collection two years ago.
The Lowrance collection represents the very best of Thomas’ art over his 60-plus-years career.
It contains examples of works in many media that Thomas explored and mastered, such as sculpture in metal, wood, stone, and plaster; mosaic in hand-made frames and furniture; painting in oil, acrylic, encaustic, and mixed media; watercolors; drawings; and printmaking in etching, woodcut, linocut, lithograph, and collagraph, among even more.
Works from the Lowrance Collection have appeared in many exhibitions, with published catalogs including Freedom of the Figure (St. Johns Museum of Art, Wilmington, N.C.); The Art of Steffen Thomas (Steffen Thomas Museum of Art, Buckhead, Ga.); and Steffen Thomas Rediscovered (Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, La.).
Dick and Marge, as the Lowrances were well known, lovingly assembled their collection over three decades before Thomas passed away in 1999. The artist knew them well as both friends and collectors, creating the strongest of bonds between him and his most dedicated patrons.
Now, fellow Steffen Thomas expert collectors Andrew and Hathia (pronounced “Hatha”) Hayes have curated and recently installed a new exhibit, Peace in Our Time: Steffen Thomas Meisterwerke from the Lowrance Collection. The new exhibit became available for viewing on Jan. 23, although the official opening reception is scheduled for Jan. 27, with Peace in Our Time scheduled to continue through July 20 this year.
The Hayes first met Thomas at his Stone Mountain home and studio in 1971 while they were both working as educators with the University of North Carolina.
Andrew says they chose five pieces but had to ask the artist to pay for them in installments. “No problem,” came the quick response, he says.
“So, we became close friends with Steffen and (his wife) Sarah and with the family over time. And not long after we met them, we met Dick and Marge, whose collection this is,” Hayes explains. “So fairly early we started going to their house occasionally, too, or we’d meet up with them at Sarah and Steffen’s place.”
Dick and Marge Lowrance began collecting Steffen Thomas’ art in 1959 following a visit to his studio near Stone Mountain, which made them ideal mentors and advisors to Andrew and Hathia. The Lowrance’s Steffen Thomas collection eventually included more than 300 pieces, Hayes says, of which he estimates “close to a hundred” are displayed in the Peace in Our Time exhibit.
Hayes says he was involved with the curation of the Lowrance’s collection practically since the moment it was bequeathed to the museum. He recalls painstakingly documenting and photographing every piece of art in their home, regardless of artist.
It was no small or easy task in a large, three-story Atlanta house that Hayes describes as “completely filled, every wall, the top of every shelf, counter or whatever flat space in every room, filled with artworks from various artists.”
Significantly, Hayes guarantees that even the most ardent of Steffen Thomas aficionados will discover pieces they’ve never seen before, either in person or in print or film, at the Peace in Our Time show.
“(The Lowrances) had one of the best, most complete collections of his prints, for example,” Hayes says. “Many of those are not framed and he had lots of drawings. So, we went through those photographs and picked out the ones that we thought were ready to show. And then we started cutting through those and generally picked out everything that’s in here now.”
During the show’s six-month run, STMA will host Collectors’ Conversation, a panel discussion about the “art” of collecting. Topics such as what it means to be a collector and how accessible it is for the average person, will be explored.
Throughout the run of the exhibition, the museum will also host groups of area students and seniors, to share these masterworks and the stories that go with them.
Peace in Our Time: Steffen Thomas Meisterwerke from the Lowrance Collection is sponsored by Hathia and Andrew Hayes, Margaret Poythress, Kimberly & Matt Jewell, Carol Lowrance-Penney, Myra & Jeff Hewlett, and Linda Larson.
Programs and free K-12 school tours are supported in part by Central Georgia EMC’s Operation Round Up, Georgia Power Foundation, Walmart Foundation, Georgia Council for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.