Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 1 by William Arnett

In the mid 1980s, Arnett began to collect the work of artists in the black American South, including pieces by such artists as Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley. Carlos Museum at Emory University, then under the direction of Maxwell Anderson. In 1994, he donated a significant portion of his extensive collection of African art to the Michael C. In 1978, he co-authored the catalogue Three Rivers of Nigeria for Atlanta's High Museum of Art. He collected the ritual arts from West and Central Africa, particularly the numerous cultures of Nigeria, Benin (formerly Dahomey), the Cameroon Grassfields, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. to the 19th century.įor a number of years, Arnett's main interest was African Art. He also became interested in Asian art, and amassed works dating from 2000 B.C. Collecting Īfter living in Europe in the mid-1960s, Arnett built an extensive collection of ancient Mediterranean art and antiquities. After attending Georgia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania, Arnett graduated from the University of Georgia, where he earned a B.A. He died on August 12, 2020.Īrnett was born in Columbus, Georgia. Arnett was named one of the '100 Most Influential Georgians' by Georgia Trend Magazine in January 2015. He is perhaps best known for writing about and collecting the work of African American artists from the Deep South. Arnett exhibited works from these collections and delivered lectures at over 100 museums and educational institutions in the United States and abroad. The White House has shown the collection. 38 museums have hosted major exhibitions, and comprehensive archives are maintained at UNC Chapel Hill.

His efforts produced 13 books with nearly 100 essays by 73 authors. Arnett was the founder and chairman of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation and documentation of African American art from the Deep South that works in coordination with leading museums and scholars to produce groundbreaking exhibitions and publications using its extensive holdings. William Sidney Arnett (– August 12, 2020) was an Atlanta-based writer, editor, curator and art collector who built internationally important collections of African, Asian, and African American art.

Not to be confused with Will Arnett, William Arndt, or W.

Souls Grown Deep, Vol. 1 by William Arnett