Pfac Explores Williamsburg Artist Carlton Abbott's Art Without Boundaries

By the Pfac News Room Sunday, December 27, 2009

The role of art in defining a community, and an individual artist’s influence on their environment, is explored in Carlton Abbott: 50 Years of Art and Architecture at Peninsula Fine Arts Center Jan. 16 through March 21, 2010.

The volume of the Williamsburg architect’s accomplishments is unusual. His expertise has been expressed in a wealth of applications including architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, sculpture and graphic arts.

Encompassing all four Pfac galleries and featuring all manner of media, this expansive exhibition tells the compelling story of how an artist can affect and shape a community.

According to Pfac Program Director & Curator Michael Preble, “This is one of our most diverse exhibitions ever, with drawings, models, paintings, mixed media, sculpture and metal work, all to celebrate an artist who has truly shaped our landscape.”

From his studio in Williamsburg, Abbott’s artwork is in the collections of some of the nation’s finest institutions. He has had over 30 one-man shows of his work, as well as more than 80 awards for his architectural accomplishments, including seven special recognition awards from the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects.

He is currently working on illustrations for a book commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway. His father Stanley Abbott, with whom he began his professional practice in 1965, served as the first landscape architect for the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was his father’s influence that helped shape Carlton’s talent for effortlessly blending his buildings into the cultural, historical and natural environment.

The list of cultural and state institutions benefiting from Carlton’s talents include Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Muscarelle Museum at William & Mary, the Community Building in Williamsburg, Mariners’ Museum, the Archaearium and Visitor’s Center at Jamestown, numerous buildings throughout Virginia State Parks, public works with the Virginia Department of Transportation, and the new Museum of the Confederacy at Appomattox.

Carlton Abbott: 50 Years of Art and Architecture is sponsored by SunTrust, Kaufman & Canoles, Empower Information Systems, Carlton Abbott & Partners, the City of Newport News, Newport News Arts Commission, Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.