Lallah Perry: Mother of Mississippi Modernism -- by, Glenn Sanford

As an artist, Lallah Perry experienced life and its’ changes, from the philosophy of Social Realism taught at Auburn, Alabama in the 1940’s, through the innovative explorations of the cubists and abstract-expressionists and impressionists. Lallah's long career as an educator teaching art paralleled her painting career as she taught in the Choctaw Indian Schools around Philadelphia, Mississippi, at Delta State University, and Meridian Community College in Meridian, Mississippi. Following the 1963 fire, which destroyed Alison’s Wells -- home to the Alison’s Art Colony established in 1948 --, Ms. Perry was instrumental in reorganizing the group as the Mississippi Art Colony in February, 1964; served as its first interim director and; introduced the custom of making the works by colony artists into a traveling exhibit. Lallah Perry died last year. Ms. Perry’s paintings have hung in the Smithsonian Museum as part of an exhibition of the Washington Watercolor Society and in the (New Orleans) World’s Fair Exhibit. One, through a program sponsored by the U.S. State Department, hung in the American Embassy, in Rabat, Morocco. Others have been part of shows in the Delgado Museum, New Orleans, and the High Museum in Atlanta, GA, The Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN, and The Society of the Four Arts, West Palm Beach, FL. Visit more of Lallah's work here in this tribute: http://sanfordarts.com/Lallah%20Perry_0001.WMV