This is represented in the permanent collections of Hampton’s museums and galleries, as well as the special exhibits and performances. From The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center and the Hampton University Museum, to The American Theater and the Dr. Mary T Christian Auditorium at Thomas Nelson Community College, lovers of cultural and performing art have not far to look for talent to appreciate.
The American Theater has become known throughout the East Coast as a premiere performing arts venue. Praised by performers and audiences alike for its charm, intimacy and acoustics, this restored 1908 vaudeville and motion-picture house will host more than 70 world-class performers in 2005. As Hampton Arts Commission director Michael Curry touts, “It’s adventurous; it’s eclectic and it’s incredibly diverse.” According to Curry, Hampton’s Great Performer Series is consistent praised as the “best performing arts series in Hampton Roads.”
The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center presents the finest local, regional, and national contemporary artists. Each year, the center is the site of the Bay Days Juried Exhibition, one of the Southeast’s most prestigious juried fine arts shows, and the Peninsula Glass Guild show, which presents glass in all its glorious forms by artists from throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. With more than 9,000 objects of African, American Indian and Asian and Pacific art and artifacts, the Hampton University Museum is a museum of national acclaim. The nation’s oldest African-American museum, its holdings represent the first assemblage of African art collected by an African American and it is the first institution to establish a collection of African American artists.
The museum’s focus turned to the fine arts in 1894 with the purchase of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s the Banjo Lesson. Jacob Lawrence, John Biggers, Samella Lewis, Elizabeth Catlett…these are just a few of the artists whose works make up the Fine Arts Collection. And the museum’s holdings in the art of the Harlem Renaissance period, featuring works by William H. Johnson and Augusta Savage, among others, are among the nation’s finest.