The main gallery of Cultivating Collections features selections from the WCU Fine Art Museum’s vitreograph collection, which consists of over 850 prints made using a glass matrix. It is the largest collection of vitreographs in the world and includes the complete archive of prints produced at Littleton Studios in Spruce Pine, NC from the mid-1970s through 2008.

Harvey and Bess Littleton launched this collection in 2005-2006 when they gifted over 750 vitreographs to the Museum. With the help of the Littleton family, this gift grew in subsequent years, creating an unparalleled collection that tells the story of a distinct period in the history of printmaking, one in which Western North Carolina plays a central role.

To celebrate the creativity of Black artists and acknowledge the need for greater representation of artists of color in the collection, this year’s student curators felt it was important to create a gallery solely devoted to Black artists. The Museum’s collection currently includes artwork by eight Black artists who have made significant contributions to the art world. Several of these artists have vitreographs in the collection, and their work is also on display in Cultivating Collections: Vitreographs.

Some of their prints speak overtly to the Black experience in America by referring to racial divides in the U.S., the Civil Rights Movement, and the untold histories of Black Americans. Other works explore broader ideas about spirituality, visual abstraction, and science.

This gallery highlights a range of artists who have connections to the history of glass in Western North Carolina. Many of them made significant contributions to the Studio Glass Movement and are teachers, mentors, and innovators who have inspired other artists to work in glass.