The Butler Museum to Exhibit Artwork by Maple Turner III

YOUNGSTOWN – The Butler Institute of American Art will salute Black History Month with the opening of a new gallery dedicated to Black artists and exhibitions of works by Maple Turner III and Billy Gerard Frank.

To highlight the Butler’s ever-growing African American collection, the museum is opening the Tidrick Gallery. The exhibition space on the second floor complements other works by Black artists dispersed throughout the museum and provides a broader educational look at the collection.

Highlights of the new gallery include Horace Pippin’s 19th-century masterwork “Zachariah” and works by Barkley Leonnard Hendricks, John Woodrow Wilson, Marin Puryear, Hughie Lee Smith, Richard Hunt, Elizabeth Catlette and Sam Gilliam.

On the local level, the gallery includes works by Al Bright and Bill Dotson.

The Turner exhibition, “The Journey 1969-2023,” will open with an artist’s reception at 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, and run through Feb. 26 in the Mesaros Gallery.

Turner is a Youngstown native who spent much of his acclaimed career in New York and Paris. He studied at the Parsons School of Design at the New School of New York and received a master’s degree from the Community College of New York. He was the first Youngstown State University graduate to attend Parsons.

The exhibit “is proof positive that Turner’s talent level is in the elite category,” said Louis Zona, executive director of The Butler. “He has flown under the radar perhaps because he has spent so much time studying in Europe and New York. They used to say about the artist Robert Rauschenberg that he would go into a closet and in 20 minutes could come out with a work of art. The same could be said of Maple Turner. He possesses that level of skill and creativity.”

The Frank exhibition, “Eulogies & Palimsests,” will open with an artist’s reception at 1 p.m. Feb. 5 and run through April 23.

Born in Grenada, West Indies, Frank is an artist, filmmaker, production designer and educator. His mixed-media artworks and films have been widely exhibited and have also appeared in the Berlinale and Sundance film festivals.

The Butler is partnering with the Youngstown Chapter of The Links and Youngstown City Schools on a Young Docent student workshop. Participating students will serve as docents in February, which is Black History Month.

The museum is also planning tours and activities relating to the Turner and Frank exhibitions. For information, contact Joyce Mistovich, education director, at 234 228 8533 or [email protected].

Pictured at top: Maple Turner III’s 2017 painting “Wick Avenue.”

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.