Artistic tradition continues

By Kendrick Brown

Thursday, October 30, 2014 at 1:40 pm (Updated: October 30, 2:01 pm)

Fans of art and artists alike converged on downtown Quincy Friday night as the Gadsden Arts Center conducted the 26th annual Art in Gadsden exhibition. More than 100 people packed the center to view 110 pieces being presented as a part of the exhibition. The pieces will be on display until Dec. 23 and they’re available for purchase, with prices ranging from $85 to $20,000.

In addition, the Gadsden Arts Center is celebrating its 20h year in existence. The arts center was founded after Zoe Galloway saw the success of Art in Gadsden and decided there was enough interest to build an arts center in Quincy. Friday night she said if there weren’t an Art in Gadsden exhibition, there would be no Gadsden Arts Center.

Robert Dewitt Smith described the exhibition as “the crown jewel of Gadsden County,” and added that people in “Tallahassee need to realize that 18 miles down the road is a great exhibition.” Smith won the exhibition’s overall award at the 23rd Art in Gadsden and won the first-place award for this year’s exhibition

Robert Dewitt Smith explains the origins of his award winning painting to a couple. He said the painting is a reinterpretation of a family picture inherited from his grandmother and that the subjects, the Diehl family, are his relatives; one of them being Raymond Diehl, a late businessman from Tallahassee for whom a major road is named.