New Publication Features Preeminent Artists, Authors, and Scholars Reflecting on Landscapes in Art and Literature

The University Press of Mississippi (UPM) in association with University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses (UMM/the Museum) is celebrating the release of its latest volume in a series featuring artists and works in UMM’s collection: “American Landscapes: Meditations on Art and Literature in a Changing World.”

The publication is a vibrant result of UMM’s 2019 acquisition of William Dunlap’s seminal painting Meditations on the Landscape in Origins of Agriculture in America (1987). The acquisition was presented in an exhibition of 40 works by Southern artists curated by Dunlap and Melanie Munns Antonelli, UMM Curator of the Collections, revealing a range of interpretations of landscape. On the occasion of the exhibition, Friends of the University of Mississippi Museum and UMM organized a symposium featuring artists, authors, and scholars held in Oxford in March 2019 that included several of the book’s contributors.

The following contributors consider meaning in art and literature, past and present, contextualizing the nation’s history—particularly that of the American South—during a time of unprecedented change experienced since spring 2019:

authors W. Ralph Eubanks, Drew Gilpin Faust, John Grisham, J. Richard Gruber, Jessica B. Harris, Lisa Howorth, Joseph M. Pierce, Julia Reed, Natasha Trethewey, and Curtis Wilkie; 

artists John Alexander, Jason Bouldin, Linda Burgess, William Dunlap, Ke Francis, Randy Hayes, and Carlyle Wolfe Lee; 

photographers Ed Croom, Huger Foote, and Sally Mann; and, 

museum directors Betsy Bradley, Jane Livingston, and Julian Rankin

This diverse group explores key events in American history portrayed in Dunlap’s painting, a landscape that evokes a range of narratives including the displacement and genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, the Civil War, and William Faulkner’s fiction. Together, the contributors examine the history of landscape art and literature through the lens of the American South, connecting art with the works of major writers like Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Natasha Trethewey, and Jesmyn Ward. 

In addition to illustrated essays, transcripts from the symposium, and artworks showcased in the exhibition, 18 new essays written during the pandemic and since the events of January 6, 2021, were added. While reflecting on a time of unprecedented change and transition, the contributors underscore how key issues Dunlap addressed in his artwork remain an integral part of the national discourse today. Subjects range from the profoundly personal to the universal: the loss of a loved one to Covid-19; isolation and displacement; racial and economic justice; political division; and the power of art and literature to connect, among them.  

A common theme is how meaningfully a sense of place in all its manifestations is entwined in individual and civic identity. Dunlap writes, “Look at the art, read the writers, and know that there is something quite remarkable about the place that is home and/or known to us through art and literature.”

Publication of the book was made possible by funds from Friends of the University of Mississippi Museum. The Friends group is hosting a two-day launch event at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS, on November 1 and 2, 2023. The event includes moderated discussions, gallery talks, a book signing at Off Square Books, and a live conversation with Gruber and Dunlap on Thacker Mountain Radio Show. Other participants include authors John T. Edge, W. Ralph Eubanks, Kathryn Schulz, and Curtis Wilkie; artist Ke Francis; and a conversation with journalists Casey Cep and Judy Woodruff. Honors College Dean Ethel Minor Scurlock will comment on the racial integration of the University, and Suzi Altman will exhibit her photographs of James Meredith, its first Black student. The events are open to the public.

The fully illustrated 272-page book retails for $50 USD.

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