Tom Lee Park is a city park located to the immediate west of downtown Memphis , Tennessee , overlooking the Mississippi River . Encompassing about 30 acres (12 ha) parallel to the Mississippi River for about one mile (1.6 km), it offers panoramic views of the Mississippi River and the shores of Arkansas on the opposite side. The park is named after Tom Lee, an African-American riverworker, who saved the lives of 32 passengers of the sinking steamboat M.E. Norman in 1925.
21-678: Tom Lee Park is a popular location for walkers, joggers, roller bladers and cyclists, and hosts one event per year, the Beale Street Music Festival that kicks off Memphis in May . In 2023, Tom Lee Park reopened following a substantial redesign by Studio Gang (as master planner and architect) and SCAPE (as landscape architect). Tom Lee Park is approximately one mile (1.6 km) long, but not more than 400 ft (120 m) wide at any point. It encompasses about 30 acres (12 ha), running south from Beale Street , bounded by
42-808: A Joan Mitchell Foundation award. He has also been the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. In 2019 Little curated the exhibition "New York Centric" at the American Fine Arts Society gallery which included the work of multiple generations of abstract artists associated with the great Metropolis including Alma Thomas , Alvin Loving , Larry Poons , Stanley Boxer , Peter Reginato , Dan Christensen , Ronnie Landfield , Gabriele Evertz , Charles Hinman , Thornton Willis , Doug Ohlson , Robert Swain , and Ed Clark . Beyond Borders: Bill Hutson & Friends, University Museums, Mechanical Hall Gallery, University of Delaware Outside
63-476: A bronze sculpture by artist David Alan Clark was erected in the park to commemorate the event and to honor the civil hero. The sculpture depicts the rescue of a survivor saved from drowning in the Mississippi River. Among several events held throughout the year, the park is well known throughout the city and region as the site of different outdoor events. The annual Memphis in May celebration
84-641: A hard-edge influenced painter, he himself has said otherwise. In 1976, his work was the subject of the solo exhibition Paintings by James Little curated by Ronald Kutcha at the Everson Museum in Syracuse. In 1980, Little's work was included in the exhibition "Afro-American Abstraction", curated by April Kingsley , at MoMA PS1 . In 2002, Little's large commission for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
105-563: Is a high-profile event in the park. The Beale Street Music Festival is a three-day event during the Memphis in May celebration, hosting over 60 musical acts each year on four stages, in diverse genres such as blues, hip-hop, and metal. The Sunset Symphony concert , since discontinued, the largest annual performance event of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, was a highlight in the park during Memorial Day weekend, marking
126-768: Is most known. The exhibition titled Louise Nevelson + James Little ran from September 3, 2020 until October 28, 2020 at Rosenbaum Contemporary in Boca Raton, Florida . Little's work was included in the 2022 Whitney Biennial . Little currently teaches at the Art Students League of New York . Little was formerly represented by the June Kelly Gallery in Manhattan and is now represented by Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood and
147-635: The Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago where his work will be the subject of a forthcoming solo exhibition in November 2022. His work is the subject of the 2005 paperback edition James Little: Reaching for the Sky which features 13 color reproductions of his pieces and essays by Robert C. Morgan , George N'Namdi, Al Loving, Robert Costa, Horace Brockington, and James Haritas. In 2009, Little won
168-964: The Bar: James Little and Thornton Willis, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY A Century of African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection, University of Delaware, Newark, DE Abstract Identity, Pelham Art Center, NY Ajita – Unconquerable, The Station, Houston, TX; catalogue 500 Works on Paper, Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York Amplified Abstraction, Chapel, Plantage, Doklaan 8-12, Amsterdam, Holland Museum, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY; catalogue Dialog and Discourse, Dolan Center Gallery, Friends Academy, Locust Valley, NY Straight Painting, The Painting Center, New York The Art of Absolute Desire, 450 Broadway, New York The Power of Drawing, Westbeth Gallery, New York Association, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY New York Eight, Luise Ross Gallery, New York Works On, With and Made Out of Paper, Sideshow 195, Brooklyn, NY The African-American Fine Arts Collection of
189-1029: The Lines: Color Across the Collections, curated by Tricia Laughlin Bloom, organized by the Newark Museum, NJ Works on Paper: Selections from the Gallery, Louis Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood, CA. of exhibitions, Mobile Museum of Art, AL; digital catalogue What Only Paint Can Do, curated by Karen Wilkin, Triangle Arts Association, Brooklyn, NY It’s A Wonderful 10th, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2007 Three One-Man Exhibitions: James Little, Aimé Mpane, George Smith, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, TX; brochure The Noyes Museum of Contemporary Art, Oceanville, NJ Optical Stimulations: American Abstract Artists, Yellow Bird Gallery, Newburgh, NY 50 Plus, Holland Tunnel Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Raising
210-507: The Mississippi River to the west, and Riverside Blvd to the east, offering panoramic views of the Mississippi River . Luxury homes and condominiums line the top of the bluff overlooking the park and the river. The park is named after area resident Tom Lee (1885–1952). Late during the afternoon of May 8, 1925, Lee steered his 28 ft (8.5 m) skiff Zev upriver after delivering an official to Helena, Arkansas . Also on
231-566: The artists whose work he most admires. He has said of the modus operandi of his own work (that)......"Abstraction provided me with self-determination and free will. It was liberating. I don’t find freedom in any other form. People like to have an answer before they have the experience. Abstraction doesn’t offer you that." Critic Karen Wilkin has called Little's work (as possessing of a) “ravishing physicality" and . . . "orchestrations of geometry and chroma to delight our eyes and stir our emotions and intellect...”. Although Little has oft been labeled
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#1732791976614252-491: The details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 979862612 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 11:06:16 GMT James Little (painter) James Little (born 1952) is an American painter and curator. He is known for his works of geometric abstraction which are often imbued with exuberant color. He has been based in New York City . Little
273-406: The end of the Memphis in May celebration. It has been replaced with a "Celebrate Memphis" event marking the end of the monthlong affair. The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest , held the third weekend of May, is the world's largest pork barbecue cooking competition, attracting hundreds of competitors to Tom Lee Park from around the world. The concept for the revitalization of Tom Lee Park
294-590: The first fully accessible connection between Memphis and the river. Among the park's new structures, a 1,486-square-metre canopy and event space, made of glulam and steel, protects and shades a set of multi-use courts, which are animated by a bright mural by Memphis-born artist James Little . Memphis in May Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
315-574: The hero, the Memphis Engineers Club raised enough money to purchase a house for Lee and his wife. Tom Lee died of cancer on April 1, 1952 at John Gaston Hospital. Two years after his death, the park along the Memphis Riverfront was named in his honor and a granite obelisk was erected. The obelisk was destroyed once in 2003 in the aftermath of Hurricane Elvis and again during strong storms in May 2017. In October 2006,
336-409: The park's primary zones together. The zones range from lively areas for recreation and flexible activities to more quiet, intimate areas for contemplation. Sculptural playgrounds designed by Monstrum take the form of giant creatures: a sturgeon, caterpillar, salamander, and a family of river otters. At the northern entrance, a switchback path leads down a series of bluffs to the river's edge, establishing
357-491: The project transformed 30 acres of overlooked land along the river, formerly occupied by sparse green lawns and heavily compacted soil. The design restored native Tennessee plants, including over 1,000 new trees such as goldenrod and milkweed. Conceived to reconnect the city of Memphis to the Mississippi, the design features five new entrances that extend from major streets and connect to a series of winding paths that weave
378-654: The river was the steamboat M.E. Norman , carrying members of the Engineers Club of Memphis, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and their families. Tom Lee witnessed M.E. Norman capsize in the swift current 15 mi (24 km) downriver from Memphis at Cow Island Bend. Although he could not swim, he rescued 32 people with five trips to shore. Lee acted quickly, calmly and with no regard for his own safety, continuing to search after night fell. Because of his efforts, only 23 people died. To honor
399-883: Was born in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee , and grew up in the segregated American South . He is from an African American family. He studied at the Memphis Academy of Art (now known as Memphis College of Art), while a student his work was praised and selected in 1973 for an exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center by Gerald Nordland . He received his BFA degree from Memphis Academy of Art in 1974. In 1976, Little obtained his MFA degree from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York . Little cites Mitchell along with Barnett Newman , Mark Rothko , Franz Kline , Alma Thomas , and George L. K. Morris as among
420-671: Was first proposed by architecture and urban design firm Studio Gang in 2017. Developed with the Mayor’s Riverfront Task Force in partnership with Memphis River Parks Partnership, the Studio's master plan reimagined six miles of the city’s Mississippi riverfront as a connected network of spaces and opportunities that benefits the entire community and restores the natural ecology of the area. The revitalized Tom Lee Park opened in September 2023. Designed by Studio Gang and SCAPE,
441-422: Was unveiled. Riders at Jamaica Station now travel through his 85-foot-long environment made of 33 multicolored laminated glass panels in a prismatic design, each measuring at 17-feet tall by 5-feet wide. In 2020, some of Little's large-scale black-tone paintings were shown in a two-artist exhibition with the work of Louise Nevelson , who was represented exclusively by the black colored sculptures, for which she
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