SAAC to feature retrospective on artist George Price in August
The South Arkansas Arts Center proudly announces a new exhibit for the month of August.
Selected works by El Dorado artist, Mr. George Price (1914-2007), entitled “Retrospective”, will be on display in the Merkle and Price Galleries Aug. 3-26.
The bulk of this retrospective is made up of works that belong to the Price family (including his very first painting), with select pieces from private collections in El Dorado and in the SAAC permanent collection. An artist’s reception is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 3, from 6-7:30 p.m.
According to an artist’s statement written by Price in 1990, he was born in Little Rock and lived in Arkansas all his life except for the years he served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He retired from Arkansas Power and Light in December 1979.
His only art training prior to his retirement was art and mechanical drawing classes when he was in high school. Early in 1980, he attended an oil workshop taught by Mrs. Ruth Denny at Southern Arkansas University.
Afterwards, he began painting with the Monday Painters at SAAC, where he continued to work in oil. His watercolor experience began in the fall of 1984 at a watercolor workshop under the instruction of Judi Betts.
Mr. Price had one man exhibits in El Dorado, Hot Springs, Russellville,
LIttle Rock, and Fort Smith, Arkansas; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Jackson, Mississippi. He won the top award in the Mid-Southern Watercolorists competition in 1988, and also won awards in the Mississippi Watercolor International Show (Jackson, Mississippi) and in the Southwestern Watercolor Show (Dallas, Texas).
He had paintings accepted for the Louisiana Watercolor Society Show
(New Orleans, Louisiana), the Southern Watercolor Society Show (Augusta, Georgia), the Southwestern Watercolor Show (Dallas, Texas), and the Alabama Watercolor Show (Mobile, Alabama). He was included in the J.E.C. Show in Arkadelphia (Arkansas) and the Arkansas Arts Center’s Small Works on Paper.
One of the highlights of his painting career was having four one man shows - two in the SAUEl Dorado Atrium, one at The South Arkansas Arts Center and one at the Arkansas River Valley Arts Center in Russellville, Arkansas.
For more information about this “Retrospective” into Mr. Price’s work, please call the SAAC office at 870-8625474 or visit the website at www.saac-arts.org. SAAC is located at 110 East Fifth Street, El Dorado, Arkansas.