Hubert Shuptrine, American (1936 – 2006)
“Hubert Shuptrine works in watercolor with a beautiful sense of the sheer, living consequentiality of his subject and with a skill that makes every picture an event to be reckoned with. He is a Beholder. He is able to enter into objects and people and places with the sense of these things entering into him.” — James Dickey, Jericho: The South Beheld.
Nationally acclaimed artist, Hubert Shuptrine (1936 – 2006) created paintings that embodied the marrow of an entire region, the vanishing South-the people, the traditions, and landscape. Whether focusing on the pattern of creases in a timeworn face, the tiniest strands of whiskers in a bristly beard, or the uneven rhythm of weathered boards on the side of an old cabin, Shuptrine was able to capture the essence of his subjects and provide a depth in his paintings which he referred to as “realizations.”.
In depicting people, he saw his images more as a form of visual biography than as portraiture. His goal was to reveal in all his subjects “the sum of moments – past, present, and future infused into a single glance.” Shuptrine’s brushwork ranges from broad wet washes of subtle color to a drybrush technique characterized by tiny strokes of tightly controlled pigment mixed with very little water. He said this technical variety enabled him to render broad atmospheric effects such as mist laden skies, or morning light spilling through a window, casting shadows, and revealing intricate details and textures.
However, his realistic technique is in no way intended to diminish the expressive power of his paintings. As Shuptrine explained, “I don’t think of myself as a realist because if you look up that word in the dictionary, it is one who paints with precision without regard for ideology, feeling, or the potential of meanings. I refer to my works as ‘realizations’ because I like the subjective part of painting as much as the objective part of painting. I like to be involved with my subjects so that what I am painting is emotion as much as surface appearance.”
Shuptrine is known for his realistic drybrush watercolors, although he began his artistic career in the realm of abstract expressionism. In 1963, his passion to see the turquoise waters of the Bahamas, where Winslow Homer visited, led him to move his family of 5. While there, he explored various different mediums and subject matter. Returning to the states in 1966, Shuptrine was drawn to the Eastern Seaboard, specifically the coast of Maine. As he began his transition of oil and gouache expressionism to watercolor realism. Shuptrine quickly made a name for himself at the grass roots art exhibition called Plum Nelly, located in Lookout Mountain in Georgia. Word quickly spread of the artist whose works were infused with an inner light and extreme attention to detail. By 1970, Shuptrine’s works would sell out before the gates had even opened. His reputation reached the ears of several fine art museums, and he was invited to exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art and The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. It was during this time that Shuptrine relocated his family to Highlands, NC. And in 1974, the artist published his first book Jericho: The South Beheld (Oxmoor House) penned by celebrated author and Poet Laureate of South Carolina, James Dickey. Dickey had just written Deliverance and it was being made into a movie in nearby Toccoa, Georgia. Jericho sold over 1 million copies and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Home to Jericho (1987) , the artist’s second book, also was award-winning and cemented Shuptrine as an established and renowned watercolor painter.
His subject matter evolved to include what he termed, The Vanishing South. Focusing on individuals and locations throughout the Southeast, his compositions included life in the Low Country (the Gullah and Geechee people), as well as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, located in western North Carolina.
Shuptrine continued to receive invitations to museum exhibitions. His works are featured in the permanent collections of numerous and national fine art museums including the Brandywine Museum, (Chadd’s Ford, PA), The Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH), the Greenville County Museum of Art (Greenville, SC), and the Tennessee State Museum (Nashville, TN). As described by Martha Severens, the former Curator for the Greenville County Museum of Art “Historian, raconteur, preservationist, and consummate craftsman, Shuptrine is all of the above in these paintings that chronicle the people, places, and things that he reveres. While more than [half] of a century has passed since he and Dickey embarked on their joint endeavor Jericho, one still senses Shuptrine’s passion for what he paints. As the prophet Joshua said of Jericho, “for the place whereon thou standest is holy”, and just as surely sacred is the American South to Hubert Shuptrine.”
He was invited to join the membership of the distinguished but very private, Bohemian Grove Club in San Francisco, California.
Hubert Shuptrine is one of seven Tennesseans to win the 2005 Governor’s Awards in the Arts. According to Rich Boyd, executive director of the Tennessee Arts Commission, these awards are considered the state’s highest honor in the arts. Susan Pierce, of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, writes that “the Distinguished Artist Award recognizes exceptional talent and creativity in any discipline, honoring artists whose works have influenced directions and trends on a state or national level.”
Shuptrine passed away Friday, April 7th, 2006, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, leaving behind a family of artists, including daughter and artist, Stephanie Shuptrine, and sons, filmmaker Randall Shuptrine, nationally acclaimed watercolorist Alan Shuptrine. He leaves behind a legacy of supreme artistic ability and a passion for capturing his subjects in an honest and true light.
Honors
Shuptrine was the recipient of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Distinguished Alumnus Award; the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity Citation; commendations by the U. S. Senate, U. S. House of Representatives, Tennessee State Legislature; an honorary membership in the University of Tennessee Alpha Scholastic Society; Key to the City of several southern cities; and was listed in Personalities of the South.
Permanent Museum Collections
Brandywine Museum, Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania
The Birmingham Museum of Fine Art, Birmingham, Alabama
Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina
Florence County Museum of Art, Florence, South Carolina
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama
Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia
Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee
Permanent Collections of several historical and other museums, corporations, and private clients.