Nashville Portraits
Photographs by Jim McGuire
Opens at the Morris Museum of Art on Friday, March 6, 2009
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA—
Nashville Portraits: Photographs by
Jim McGuire, organized by the
Morris Museum of Art, opens to the
public on March 6, 2009, at the
Morris Museum’s annual Gala. This
highly acclaimed touring exhibition
includes sixty of McGuire’s most
engaging photographic portraits of
leading figures in country, bluegrass,
and Americana music—among them
Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash (with Billy
Graham), Emmylou Harris, and Ricky
Skaggs.
“Jim McGuire is one of country
music’s most celebrated photogra-
phers,” said Kevin Grogan, director
of the Morris Museum of Art and
curator of the exhibition. “These
sixty silver gelatin prints were se-
lected from thousands of portraits shot
over a period of more than thirty-five
years. Since Jim moved to Nashville
in 1972, his photographs have graced the covers of more than six hundred recordings, and, in Nash-
ville, he has grown to be nearly as famous as his musical subjects.”
As McGuire himself has pointed out, “Over the past thirty-plus years, I have had the great good
fortune to have met, photographed, and befriended many of my musical heroes. Most of us have a
drawer full of snap shots that remind us of the good times. These are mine.”
This exhibition began its national tour at the First Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville,
Tennessee where it appeared from May to September 2007. It has since traveled to the Art Museum
Johnny Cash and Billy Graham
of Western Virginia in Roanoke, City of Lake Charles in Louisiana, and Huntsville Museum of Art in
Alabama. After its appearance at the Morris Museum, the exhibition journeys to the Georgia Music
Hall of Fame in Macon, Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum in Logan, Kansas, and the Museum of
the Southwest in Midland, Texas. The exhibition was organized by the Morris Museum of Art in
Augusta, Georgia, and its tour was developed and is managed by Smith-Kramer Fine Art Services, an
exhibition tour development company in Kansas City