Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library is currently hosting a major exhibition that brings together, for the first time, the lives and work of three Georgia-born artists: painter/illustrator Benny Andrews and writers Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker.
“At the Crossroads with Benny Andrews, Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker,” located in the Schatten Gallery on Level 3 of Emory’s Woodruff Library, is open to the public and runs through May 18, 2024.
Andrews (1930-2006, from Plainview), O’Connor (1925-1964, from Milledgeville) and Walker (1944 -, from Eatonton) all emerged from small towns within a 50-mile radius of each other in middle Georgia. Although they moved away from Georgia to pursue their education and lives in other states, their archival papers reside together in the Rose Library.
The exhibition draws its inspiration and materials from those three collections and from O’Connor’s short story “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” The three artists are connected through this story, first published in 1961 and later illustrated by Andrews and addressed by Walker in her short story “Convergence” and her essay “Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O’Connor.” O’Connor’s story offers a deep critique of white Southern racism as revealed through a racialized encounter on a bus between two pairs of mothers and sons.
“While each of these artists is internationally known through their writings and art, few in the world have had access to them through their archives,” says Jennifer Gunter King, director of the Rose Library. “Thanks to…
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