Walter Anderson Museum of Art is a must see on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Quotes by Anderson
It is your choices that make you uniquely you.
Believe in something big. Your life is worth a noble motive.
I read myself out of poverty, long before I worked myself out of poverty.
Beware by whom you are called sane.
Smile. Have you ever noticed how easily puppies make human friends? Yet all they do is wag their tails and fall over.
Anderson's always present hat and his life mask.
The Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, celebrates the work of one of the most accomplished artists who lived and worked on the Gulf Coast.
Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) was born in New Orleans to George and Annette Anderson. His father was a grain merchant, and his mother was an artist. He had two brothers, Peter and James (“Mac”), who also were accomplished artists.
Anderson studied at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts (now the Parsons School of Design) and graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He won a scholarship to study abroad and traveled to France, where he studied ancient cave drawings and the French cathedrals. Both had major influences on his art.
He and his brothers founded Shearwater Pottery in Ocean Springs, where he completed most of his more famous works of art. He produced pottery, paintings, and wood carvings. He also designed furniture.
Working for the Public Works Administration, Anderson painted murals for the Ocean Springs High School Auditorium, which are now displayed at the museum in Ocean Springs. He also painted a room mural in the Ocean Springs Community Center, which is now adjacent to the Anderson museum. He refused payment from the city for the amazing mural that depicts the history of the city.
After a mental breakdown in 1937, Anderson spent three years in mental hospitals. When he returned to the Mississippi coast, he lived in a small house at Shearwater Pottery, going daily into a small room to work. He kept the door to his studio locked and never allowed anyone in. After his death, the lock was removed, and his family found that he had painted a magnificent mural all over the walls and ceiling, which represented a day in the life of the Gulf Coast (my video of the room is below). They also found a trunk full of his paintings that he had not shown to anyone.
Anderson had a deep appreciation for nature, and worried that man and nature could not survive together unless humans changed their ways. He spent much time on a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi, Horn Island. From 1945 to his death, he lived the life of a recluse. He secluded himself on the island for months at a time to observe nature and paint. And other times, he secluded himself in his house at Shearwater Pottery.
He also made trips abroad to China and Costa Rica and would often take bicycle trips, riding thousands of miles.
Anderson also was a writer, recording his trips to Horn Island as well as to China, Costa Rica, New York, New Orleans, Texas, and Florida. In addition, he was an illustrator, often reading a book, holding it in his left hand, and sketching out an illustration with his right hand. He illustrated the Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin, Paradise Lost, by John Milton, and other works he admired. He also wrote short stories for children, some with his own illustrations, and poetry.
Some of his best work is displayed at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art; the Memphis Brooks Museum; the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi; and the Lauren Rodgers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi. Many of his manuscripts and paintings were damaged or ruined by Hurricane Katrina. A fierce self-critic, he was also known to have burned many of his paintings and manuscripts.
Check out this current excursion in search of Walter Anderson's experience on Horn Island that was published in the October issue of Oxford American.
The Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 510 Washington Avenue, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.