Carol Stein in Cumberland Gallery
Long before art addicts prowled 5th Avenue on the first Saturday of every month for the downtown art crawl, the Cumberland Gallery in Green Hills was bringing fine art to the public. Founder and director Carol Stein announced that after 39 years, Cumberland Gallery will shutter its doors for good in spring 2019.
Over the past four decades, Stein and staffers have attended art fairs around the country, representing Nashville and Southeastern artists nationally. Cumberland has long hosted fundraisers for local nonprofits such as Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee and The Nashville Food Project, and they’ve provided opportunities to nurture young artists with workshops for children. Notably, the gallery has also hosted affordable holiday sales, so those who may not usually be able to afford fine art could take home a piece from Stein’s powerhouse roster.
And about that roster: Stein has an eye for diverse styles and talents, like trippy work from Fred Stonehouse and dreamy paintings from Lori Field. The gallery represents well-established artists like Tennessee great Red Grooms, as well as relative newcomers like hyper-realist Meg Aubrey. Stein has both jump-started careers and kept longstanding Southeastern artists in the spotlight.
Stein wrote on the gallery’s Facebook page:
For the past 39 years, it has been my distinct privilege to represent a group of outstanding artists from Nashville, Tennessee, the Southeast and beyond. Despite differences of representation and medium, all possess great artistic integrity and technical skill and together they have formed our distinguished and distinctive roster. While it has been a joy to be at the helm of Cumberland Gallery, I have decided to move on to the next segment of my life and devote more time to my family, grandchildren and some new quests. I plan to close Cumberland Gallery this upcoming spring.Our last show, A 39 Year Retrospective, will take place after the first of the year and pays homage to those artists who have been responsible for establishing our reputation as the foremost gallery in Nashville. This two-part exhibition will primarily feature new work by fifty selected artists and will close on March 2nd.
Newcomers to Nashville might look to Wedgewood-Houston and Buchanan Street as the city’s hip artistic hubs, but the city's thriving visual art scene is indeed built on the shoulders of giants. All founders of commercial galleries do so at financial risk — keeping their doors open is a feat unto itself. Imagine doing so nearly 40 years ago, before Nashville became a city booming with tourists and newcomers. Artists, curators, gallery-owners and the public owe a great debt to Stein and Cumberland, so raise a glass to four decades of dedication and belief that Nashvillians will support the arts, and, in turn, that art can keep us all afloat.
