Posted 14 years ago
Savoychina1
(650 items)
CHARLESTON MARKET - SATURDAY MORNING
STONE LITHOGRAPH 12/17
Virginia Fouche Bolton (1929 - 2004) was born in Hartsville, SC and moved to Charleston when she was 14. She received her art degree from Winthrop College and began her teaching career at St. John the Baptist Cathedral School, later teaching at Moultrie, Wando and Bishop England High Schools. She was loved by her students who continuously won art awards throughout South Carolina, many of them developing careers on their own as artists and teachers.
During her teaching career, she began to paint professionally and in 1976 , she and her husband Don opened an art gallery to showcase her work on Meeting Street in Charleston. As one of Charleston’s finest artists, her ability to capture the unique throb of the city and some of its citizens won her acclaim. She created paintings with a flow of diffused translucent light. Her sensitive and colorful renditions of cityscapes and flower women have long been favorites of people who visited the city. In 1972, she was the recipient of the Charleston Scientific and Cultural Educational Fund Award, which allowed her to spend two months in Greece to paint. She continued to win numerous local and national awards and was accepted in to the Southern Watercolor Society. In 1981 she received a Masters in Art Teaching degree from Rhode Island School of Design.
Mrs. Bolton and her husband moved to Edisto Island in 1981 and it is there that she found so much inspiration for her painting. The marshes, woods and beaches were her daily stomping grounds and she befriended many of the local people who became subjects for so many of her paintings. Painted with compelling compassion, these were faces mellowed by a lifetime of bittersweet experience. Although she is mostly remembered for her passionate teaching style and her ability as an artist, those closest to her knew that her religion ( her devotion to God and Christ) was what she cherished most and was the foundation of her life. As a personal remembrance of her love, she began signing all her paintings with a small cross in front of her name. “I hope that everything I do glorifies His name."
