Art notes: Crafts rule at ‘Summer Swan Invitational’; Woodruff murals in Birmingham

Ceramics by Gwen Fryar are showcased in Swan Coach House Gallery s Summer Swan Invitational.

Credit: hpousner

Credit: hpousner

Ceramics by Gwen Fryar are showcased in Swan Coach House Gallery s Summer Swan Invitational.

The fifth edition of the Swan Coach House Gallery’s popular “Summer Swan Invitational,” showcasing contemporary Southern pottery and other hand-crafted objects, presents its usual epic array of temptations.

Wooden work by Butch Reagan is included in Swan Coach House Gallery’s “Summer Swan Invitational.”

Credit: hpousner

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Credit: hpousner

The exhibit features some 500 objects by nearly 50 makers, including longtime metro artists Eileen Braun, Barry Gregg and Michael Murrell as well as recent discoveries of curator Marianne Lambert. In addition to ceramics, the artists work in wood, metal, glass, concrete, sculpted clay and fiber.

This year’s show gives special focus to work created at Chastain Arts Center in Buckhead and includes its ceramics department coordinator, John Roberts.

Unlike during typical Swan Coach House exhibits, buyers can take their purchases home with them. As they do, new works are put on view.

Opening reception, 6-9 p.m. June 4. Show runs through Aug. 5. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Free admission to the show. 3130 Slaton Drive, Atlanta. 404-266-2636, gallery.swancoachhouse.com.

Hale Woodruff's “The Building of Savery Library” (1940), from the Atlanta artists mural series on the founding of Alabama's Talladega College.

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Credit: hpousner

Amistad, Talladega College murals in Birmingham

"Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College," the nationally touring exhibition of six historical murals by the famed African-American artist organized by the High Museum of Art, opens June 13 at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The show by the late Atlantan debuted at the Atlanta museum in 2012. Commissioned in 1938, the large-scale murals (two are 20 feet wide), portray the Amistad mutiny and its aftermath as well as the founding of Alabama’s Talladega College, one of the first colleges established for blacks in the U.S.

Through Sept. 6. Free. 2000 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd., Birmingham. 205-254-2565, www.artsbma.org.