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A Webster County, Mississippi native, William Dunlap is delighted to call Sam Gore his third or fourth cousin. These two Mississippi College graduates are splendid artists.
“I think the world of Dr. Gore,” Dunlap says. “He was always an idol of mine.”
Their family ties run deep. Gore also served as Dunlap’s professor at Mississippi College in the 1960s. The Art Department back then, he recalled, consisted of “Dr. Gore and a few rooms in the building” on the Clinton campus.
The retired chairman of the MC Art Department, Gore will join a parade of art lovers welcoming Dunlap’s return to the university at a November 13 reception. The MC Art Department hosts the Sunday event from 3-5 p.m. at the Gore Art Galleries located at 199 Monroe Street.
A 1967 MC graduate, Dunlap will be the featured artist at a three-month Gore Galleries exhibition. The “Art About Art” show opens November 13 and runs through February 23, 2017. His works on display will include the oil painting “Fish and Flower,” and the painting “Mississippi Allegory.” Patrons will want to catch a glimpse of Dunlap’s “War and Rumors of War” along with the handmade pulp paper painting titled “Rembrandt.”
Dunlap’s distinguished career as an artist, arts commentator and educator spans more than three decades.
“William Dunlap is one of our most successful art alumni at the national and international levels,” said Art Department Chairman Randy Miley. “With all of the accolades and activities that he is engaged in, Bill still takes time to support his school and believes in MC.”
Dunlap and Gore were reunited as the two Southern gentlemen appeared at the 2016 Mississippi Book Festival at the Capitol. Dunlap served on a panel celebrating Barbara Gauntt’s new book on Gore’s incredible career covering more than six decades. Published by University Press of Mississippi, it is titled “Samuel Marshall Gore: Blessed with Tired Hands.” On the front row, Gore watched the interesting discussions with more than 100 audience members packing the Mississippi House committee room that hot summer day.
Dunlap is amazed by Gore’s many extraordinary works including his massive sculpture of Moses, the Giver of the Law. The bronze sculpture adorns the exterior of a building at the Mississippi College School of Law in downtown Jackson.
People remain in awe of Dunlap’s many creative works as well. The North Mississippi native earned his M.F.A. at the University of Mississippi and taught for ten years at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and the University of Memphis. Dunlap maintains studios in McLean, Virginia, Mathiston, Mississippi and Coral Cables, Florida.
He’s won numerous awards and fellowships.
His paintings, sculptures and constructions are included in prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Lauren Rogers Museum in Laurel, the Arkansas Art Center, the United States State Department, and U.S. embassies around the world. He’s had solo exhibitions in such venues as the Aspen Museum of Art, the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, to name a few.
His remarkable 14-panel, 112-feet long cyclorama painting depicts a contemporary view of the Shenandoah Valley in summer and the Antietam Civil War battlefield in winter. Titled “Panorama of the American Landscape,” the piece has been shown in nearly a dozen American museums and art centers. Currently, Dunlap is working on an exhibition at the Meridian International Center that will spotlight contemporary Cuban paintings.
Mississippi College’s Gore Galleries are open from 9 a.m. through 3 p.m. Monday to Friday and on Tuesday evenings from 6-8 p.m. Admission is free.
For more information, contact Randy Jolly, director of the Gore Galleries at 601-925-3880 or rjolly@mc.edu
Photo: One of William Dunlap’s works on display will include the painting “Mississippi Allegory.”
