Margaret Morrison was the first artist featured in the UGA Performing Arts Center’s Lobby Gallery in 2024. She returns with “Antiques,” a selection of four colorful, outsized canvases depicting displays from Italian antique markets. The exhibition runs through early January with an opening reception at 5 p.m. on Aug. 27.
Morrison, a retired professor emerita from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ Lamar Dodd School of Art, taught for nearly 25 years and served as chair of the painting and drawing department. She created three of the exhibited paintings in Cortona, Italy, where she taught in the summer, and the fourth at her home studio in Bogart.
The paintings, part of a larger set, were created from cellphone photos shot at various Tuscan market stalls.
“I would follow the antique market around,” Morrison said. “Sometimes it was in Arezzo, sometimes in Lucca, sometimes in Cortona. I became interested in how each vendor displayed objects. There was an artistry in how they displayed their wares.”
Morrison’s “Cristallo” is 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and features crystal goblets on mirrored trays. In the equally large “Opera Omnia,” a pack of American cigarettes lies amidst folded fans, an alarm clock and a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“I will turn to painting objects when I need the pure pleasure of analyzing what I see,” she said. She explained that her figurative work, such as the “Paradigm Shift” series shown at the Lobby Gallery two years ago, comes from the heart. Depicting things is more of “an analytical puzzle.” Yet the assemblages she celebrates “all have to do with human presence,” she said. In a way, the paintings are portraits.
Morrison has just returned from New York and Los Angeles, where Emmy-winning TV writer and producer William Lucas Walker (Roseanne, Frasier, Will & Grace) is working on “To Find Margaret,” a documentary about her long career. Thirty years ago, he bought one of her paintings, only to connect with her decades later via Instagram. He has since taken her to visit homes where, as she puts it, “paintings have gone to live.”
The Lobby Gallery is free and open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and during weekend performances. The UGA Performing Arts Center is the home base of UGA Presents, the university’s professional performing arts series. Subscription tickets for the 2026-27 season and single tickets are on sale now. For ticket information visit pac.uga.edu or call the box office at 706-542-4400.