(photo of Vann by John Schmidt) 

 

Luther E. Vann had the advantage of growing up during the 1940s and 1950s in both the city of his birth, Savannah, Georgia, and that of his parents’ adopted home, New York City. The former city continues to provide him with inspiring subject matter while the latter provided him with the bulk of his formal training.

 

As a developing artist, Vann’s life in New York City during the mid-twentieth century exposed him to the works of Harlem Renaissance artists such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Ernest Crichlow, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Augusta Fells Savage. In that very concrete sense, his life and work represent a direct link to the Harlem Renaissance.   

 

In addition to studying at the Art Students League in New York, he also studied at the New School for Social Research and at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Studio. His artistic expressiveness encompasses virtually every visual medium: painting, photography, sculpture, and digital creations.

 

 

Vann has been the recipient of a number of grants, including funding from the New York State Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Georgia Council for the Arts. A first-place prize winner in the 1996 Georgia Arts Festival, his work has hung in group and solo exhibitions through the United States and around the world, including at the Beach Institute in Savannah, the Cinque Gallery in New York City, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Museum of Arts, and the Telfair Museum. Among his most recent shows was a 2006 exhibition at the Hurn Museum in Savannah followed by the museum’s traveling exhibition in Florence, Italy. His work showed as well to critical acclaim in 2007 at the Urban Arts in Alpharetta, Georgia. He also participated at the end of 2007 in the Holiday Fundraiser Exhibition held at the Indigo Sky Community Gallery founded by Jerome Meadows in Savannah.

 

(Image of Vann's "Coming Home" on cover of the Savannah News Press' ACCENT)

 

 

 

In addition to hanging in private collections on several continents, Vann’s works are also part of public collections like those in the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey; Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York; the King-Tisdell Cottage in Savannah, and the Telfair Museum of Art. Savannah’s Abyssinia Baptist Church commissioned the artist to create stained glass depicting the establishment of the Ethiopian church, the first organized Christian church, from Acts 8.

 

The latter part of 2007 saw Vann continue to challenge himself and grow as an artist by contributing images for two book covers, one the poetry collection entitled The Bridge of Silver Wings; and the other for a novel called Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World. He continues to expand the boundaries of his creative expression with digital creations that fuse elements of original art with photography and design. He participated as well in

 

As his first book, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love, went to press, the artist was completing the construction of a studio gallery in his back yard.