Greenville artist and former Bob Jones University professor Carl Blair has died

  

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Donna Isbell Walker 

Greenville artist Carl Blair, whose career spanned more than 60 years and whose work influenced the arts scene in the Upstate, died Monday. He was 85.

Blair, a native of Atchison, Kansas, was a landscape painter and a longtime member of the faculty at Bob Jones University and at Greenville County Museum of Art. 

On Monday, Alan Ethridge, executive director of the Metropolitan Arts Council, praised Blair’s lasting influence on the arts in Greenville.

“Carl Blair’s passing is a profound loss not only for the Greenville arts community but also for the regional and national arenas as well, as Carl inspired generations of visual artists and arts educators throughout the country,” Ethridge said. “His kind and unassuming manner was such a blessing to all who interacted with him.”

In 2013, MAC honored Blair with the Carl R. Blair Award for Commitment to Arts Education which is given annually to an arts educator.

Blair served on the South Carolina Arts Commission for 12 years, including two years as chairman, and received South Carolina’s 2005 Verner Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was a co-founder of Hampton III Gallery, one of the first commercial galleries in the Upstate.

As part of the Verner Award Celebration Exhibition in 2005, Blair was described as a “driving force” in the South Carolina arts scene, and in 2016, 55 Upstate artists who were influenced by Blair took part in an exhibit at MAC titled “Artists Touched by Carl R. Blair.”

In the catalog that accompanied the MAC exhibit, artist Dave Appleman wrote that Blair was “challenging, encouraging, helpful, witty and inspirational to all his students.”

Darren Lawson, dean of the School of Fine Arts and Communication at BJU, said Blair’s influence spans generations.

“We are deeply saddened by the news of Carl Blair’s passing,” Lawson said. “In addition to being a superb artist, he was a master teacher who trained hundreds of students during his distinguished educational career at Bob Jones University. His legacy lives on in the students who have learned from him and who continue to practice their art around the world.”

Blair received his bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Kansas and his MFA from Kansas City Art Institute, and he joined the BJU art faculty in 1957.

Although Blair was color-blind, he painted colorful abstract landscapes and animal-themed wood sculptures, and after his wife Margaret’s death in 2006, he put on a retrospective exhibit to pay tribute to her.

The animal sculptures were created from plywood and accessorized with found objects such as marbles or screws.

“Always take work seriously, but never take yourself too seriously,” Blair said of his art in a Greenville News interview in 2008.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete at Mackey Mortuary.

Please check back with GreenvilleOnline.com for updates on this story.

Paul Hyde contributed to this story.

https://eu.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2018/01/22/greenville-artist-and-former-bob-jones-university-professor-carl-blair-has-died/1055060001/

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