About the Artist
Mary White
"The extraordinary work of Mary Whyte, who could easily be named the first visual poet laureate of South Carolina, is astonishing on the very face of it. Whyte's work is in a league of her own. She is painting a South Carolina I thought only a poet or novelist could create. Mary Whyte has made South Carolina a kingdom of her own, and my God, this woman can write and paint." -Pat Conroy
Born in Ohio in 1953, Mary Whyte graduated from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia with a degree in fine arts and a teaching certificate. Mary Whyte has received national attention for her watercolors depicting African-American Gullah women of Johns Island, South Carolina. She recently has turned her attention to painting southern laborers. A resident of Johns Island, Whyte garners much of her inspiration from the Gullah descendants of Coastal Carolina slaves, who number among her most prominent subjects. In 2003, Whyte's paintings of her Gullah friends culminated in a museum exhibition and book called Alfreda's World.
In 2011, Whyte's groundbreaking exhibition Working South opened with 50 works at the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina. Four additional museums signed on to exhibit the large-scale, sensitively rendered watercolors depicting textile mill workers, shrimpers, shoe shine men and other blue collar workers in industries which are vanishing throughout the South. Whyte's unrivaled mastery of the watercolor medium portraying these laborers was featured on "CBS Sunday Morning," as well as in numerous national periodicals. Her watercolors have also been showcased in many magazines including International Artist, American Art Collector, American Artist, Artist Magazine, and L'Art de Aquarelle in France. She is the author of Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor, Watercolor for the Serious Beginner and An Artist's Way of Seeing. Whyte continues to teach watercolor as a faculty member of the Portrait Society of America both nationwide and in Europe.
Down Bohicket Road, a comprehensive book of the artist's paintings, created over a 20 year period on Johns Island, is scheduled to be released this month. The theme of Down Bohicket Road began as a series of paintings celebrating a group of Gullah women who influenced Whyte's life and art in astonishing and unexpected ways. She painted to depict these women, her friends, honoring their lives and their dedication to family and faith.
Now through February 10, 2013, you can visit the Working South exhibit by Mary Whyte at the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia.
Her paintings can be viewed an d purchased exclusively at Coleman Fine Art located at 79 Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina, where her husband, Smith Coleman, handcrafts gilded and carved frames. They can be reached at 843-853-7000. To see her work online, log onto marywhyte.com or colemanfineart.com.