Above, Sarah Gillespie Gallery Curator, Iris Easterling,

presents Earl W. Wilson’s ‘Pickin’ Cotton,’ one of the

paintings in the Gillespie Collection.

Right, rendering of the completed Smith-Rouse Library

Expansion project at William Carey University in
Hattiesburg. The Library is the new home for the
Gillespie Art Gallery.

44 • south mississippi scene

 orphans
GILLESPIE’S

OF THE STORM
SARAH GILLESPIE

Sarah Gillespie spent her life
assembling what some art
experts consider to be the most
complete collection of art pro-
duced by Mississippians in the
20th century. It was nearly lost
when Hurricane Katrina rav-
aged the Mississippi Gulf Coast
on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying
the William Carey University
campus in Gulfport, where the
collection had been displayed
since 1999 in a beachfront
gallery.
Soon, Gillespie’s “orphans,”
as she called the more than 450
works by artists including
Walter Anderson, Wyatt
Waters, Ethel Wright Mohamed
and Marie Hull, will move into
a new gallery on the
Hattiesburg campus of William
Carey University designed just
for them.
Unfortunately, Gillespie did
not live to see the opening of
the new gallery. She died in

STORY BY ROBYN JACKSON

PHOTOS COURTESY WILLIAM CAREY UNIVERSITY
SARAH GILLESPIE COLLECTION
Hattiesburg on Sept. 1, 2008, at the
age of 88, but Iris Easterling, curator
of the Sarah Gillespie Collection,
believes she would have been proud
of the new gallery, a wing of the
Smith Rouse Library which is slated to
open in March.
“It is a miracle that the complete
collection was not destroyed,”
Easterling said. “Each piece had to be
removed from its frame, assessed by a
professional and prepared for exhib-

Left, Painting by Theora Hamblett

Right, ‘The Baptism’ by Ethel Wright
Mohammed
Below, ‘Running from Policeman’ by
William Hollingsworth, Jr.
art: sarah gillespie gallery of art
it.”
Saving the paintings included
placing them in a freezer to
stop the growth of mold until
they could be professionally
cleaned.
Easterling was honored for
her Herculean efforts to save
the collection during a ceremo-
ny last summer hosted by the
Southeastern Museums
Conference in New Orleans.
First Lady Laura Bush recog-
nized 11 honorees at a special
reception held in their honor.
Easterling, who also serves as
assistant professor of English at
Carey, was recognized for her
tireless work in not only mov-
ing the collection from the ruins
of the gallery after Katrina, and
for her work in cleaning and
restoring the pieces that were
damaged by the storm surge
and the mold that followed, but
also for her continued work in
procuring grants from the
National Endowment for the
Humanities, the Conservation
Assessment Program, SEMC,
private donors and other foun-
dations.
Easterling was assisted in her
restoration project by a consult-
ant paid for by a grant from the
Southeastern Museums
Conference, a nonprofit organi-
zation that seeks to increase
education and professional
development opportunities. The
consultant helped Easterling
with the preparation of the col-
lection for display in the new
gallery and also compiled the
information and photographs
needed to produce a catalog
showcasing the collection.
Previous catalogs were
destroyed by Katrina, along
with acquisition information
and artist biographies.
Carey’s collection was one of
only five in the state that
received part of a $225,000
Hurricane Relief Award. The
others were the Ohr-O’Keefe
Museum of Art and Maritime
Seafood Industry Museum,
both in Biloxi, Lynn Meadows
Discovery Center in Gulfport
and the Walter Anderson
Museum of Art in Ocean
Springs.
Gillespie, the daughter of a
Hattiesburg lumberman,
William Gunn Gillespie, and
his wife, Sallie Keith Gillespie,
was born in 1920 and raised in
a house on Walnut Street
where she lived until her
death. She graduated from
Sophie Newcomb College in
New Orleans, the women’s col-
lege of Tulane University. In
1943, she began a career as a
reporter with the Hattiesburg
American that would span two
decades. She also served as
president of the original
Hattiesburg Home and Garden
Club and was a member of
Junior Auxiliary, Red Cross
and Girl Scouts boards, and the
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
board, parish council and
building committee.
She had intense interest in
literature, botany and birding,
but she will be remembered
for her passion for art. She
began collecting in 1943, pick-
ing up her first work for $5 at
an art show sponsored by the
Mississippi Art Association at
the old Hattiesburg Library on
Main Street. She focused on
works by Mississippi artists.
Many, like Hull, Anderson and
Kate Freeman Clark were
established, well-known
artists, but Gillespie also
championed emerging artists,
befriending many of them over
the years.
“Part of the delight Sarah
found in collecting was the peo-
ple she got to know,” said Patty
Hall, director of the
Hattiesburg Arts Council, and a
close friend of Gillespie’s.
“She went to their homes and
bought art off their front porch-
es. They became part of a huge
family. They became very
important in her life.”
Hall recalls helping Gillespie
track down emerging artists in
various parts of the state that
she had read about. Sometimes,
after Gillespie would return
from a trip, she would pull into
the parking lot behind the
Hattiesburg Cultural Center,
where Hall’s office is located,
and hold what she called “a
trunk show.” She would open
her car’s trunk and show Hall
the artworks she had pur-
chased.
“Sarah taught me so much,
and I just wish I had listened
better and taken better notes,”
Hall said. “You could tell she
was a serious collector. When
an artist knew their work was
in her collection, they felt like
they had made it.”
In 2000, Gillespie was named
the recipient of the Arts Patron
Award category of the
Governor’s Award for
Excellence in the Arts.
Gillespie favored landscapes,
but at the time of her death, she
was working actively to
increase her collection of
African-American works. In
fact, Gillespie was an avid art
collector even when she was no
longer able to live on her own
or travel around the state by
herself. She was living at The
Loyalton, an assisted living
facility in Hattiesburg, when
Hurricane Katrina struck, and
was evacuated along with other
residents to a facility in
Meridian, where she quickly
persuaded someone to take her
to an art gallery.
“She bought seven paintings
as an evacuee a week after
Katrina,” Hall said.
Gillespie was present when
Hall and Easterling and a few
others first surveyed the dam-
age to her collection after
Katrina, and she was visibly
distressed to know that some of
her watercolors, including one
by Walter Anderson, did not
survive, but Hall said Gillespie
lived long enough to know that
most of the works will soon
have a beautiful new home.
“I’m so glad she was able to
see so much of her work stabi-
lized,” Hall said.
Left, a painting by artist
Marie Hull
Above, Walter Ingles
Anderson’s O’Malley and
Kitten
south mississippi scene • 49