With a little help from his friends: Late artist Steve Hinton’s work on display at Albany Museum of Art through Aug. 12
Staff Photo: Alan Mauldin
By Alan Mauldin
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ALBANY — Whether it was in grade school, college, the New York art world or at his studio in rural Georgia, artist Steve Hinton forged long-term friendships.
Now, those friends are paying tribute to the artist at a venue that is another of Hinton’s friends: the Albany Museum of Art. The “Steve Hinton & Friends” exhibition, which opened at the museum last week, will be on display through Aug. 12.
Three galleries at the AMA have been filled with Hinton’s work, many on loan from friends, some of whose works are also on display in a third gallery, and family members of the artist, who died in February 2021.
“This exhibition is a very different exhibition from what we normally do in that all the artwork has been crowd-sourced,” Katie Dillard, AMA director of curatorial affairs, said. “We have reached out to friends of his in the Albany community, this region and as far away as Washington state, Providence, Rhode Island, and Florida. He had friends all over the place.”
The glue that holds the exhibition together is Hinton’s wife, Bronwyn, Dillard said.
“She coordinated almost all of the lenders who contributed to this exhibit,” Dillard said. “So this is very much her show.
“Because Steve wanted this. I believe he was aware that this community, his friends, wanted an exhibit of his work. He specifically wanted to exhibit his friends’ work alongside his work.”
Those include people he met while working in New York as well as from his days as an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University and while doing his graduate work at the University of Georgia.
“He was all over the area,” Dillard said. “He loved the small towns.”
Hinton moved to Dougherty County in 1982, during the time the AMA, which opened in 1983, was in the planning stages. From the first, he and Bronwyn were champions for the museum and have supported it over the years, Dillard said.
“They really plugged into the art scene, especially of this community,” she said. “Once they heard about this museum becoming a thing, they were really involved; they were very generous.
“This exhibition is kind of like a thank you for all Steve and Bronwyn did for that museum.”
The museum is honored to have the opportunity to showcase Hinton’s work, AMA Executive Director Andrew Wulf said.
“He was a most important regional artist and was a great friend to the AMA,” Wulf said. “He had a tremendous sense of humor, a charming sense of humor. You can’t but smile when you stand in front of his work.”
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