Featured Exhibit

This exhibit changes several times a year.

“Mary Caples Morrison (1907-1995) Harrisonburg Artist”

The exhibit at The Heritage Museum brings together over ninety works of sculpture, painting, and drawing made by the artist during the more than forty years that she lived in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This retrospective of an artist trained as a sculptor and self-taught as a painter shows the influence of the sculptor in the forms painted with bold colors and heavy pigment.

Always a representational artist, her work captures the Valley life in its landscapes, its structures, its people, and its culture, particularly the culture of the Old Order Mennonites, a favorite subject. Morrison was one of the first artists in the small Valley town early in the Century. She contributed to the artistic life of her community with her own work as well as her fostering of new artists.

Mary Caples Morrison, sculptor and painter, was born in Richmond, Virginia. She graduated from the Collegiate School of William and Mary, a private school in Richmond. In 1925, she enrolled in The Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and graduated with honors. For a time she trained with the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who is best known for the colossal heads of the Presidents carved into the stone face of Mt. Rushmore.

During the 1950s, Mary was part of a group of painters in Harrisonburg who met regularly with a model. She taught drawing for many years at the Harrisonburg Recreation Department. Her work has been exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia.

 

A sketch of Mary Morrison when a young lady.

 

See the Programs webpage for programs about this exhibit.

View previous Featured Exhibits.