2026 Lunch & Lecture Series
Thursday, February 26
Lunch and Lecture Begins at 12:00 Noon
Bidding Opens at 11:00 AM
Join us as we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Historic Columbus with a special Lunch and Lecture featuring Dr. Garry Pound and a silent art auction benefiting the Alma Thomas House Museum Project.
The auction is exclusive to Lunch & Lecture attendees, and only in-person bids will be accepted.
Scroll down to see all of the art.
Auction Rules
All artwork will be available for in-person PREVIEW at the Rankin House (1440 Second Avenue) until the day before the event.
You will receive your BIDDER NUMBER at the event. Bidding will open at 11:00 AM on Thursday, February 26th, at the event venue (1017 Front Avenue). The program will begin at 12:15 PM with lunch served. Once the program concludes, bidding will re-open for an additional 15 minutes for final bids.
All bids and bidder numbers must be written on the bid sheet for that item. Bids must follow the minimum raise listed on the sheet. The highest eligible bid at closing wins. In the event of a dispute, the Auction Committee’s decision is final.
Winners will be announced immediately after the bidding closes. Payment is due immediately after closing, before the artwork is claimed. All sales are final. Items are sold “as is.”
Silent Auction Featured Artists
Online Preview of Auction Pieces
This exhibit booklet of Alma Thomas paintings was published in 1975. It is from an exhibit of her work at the Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It was one of several that Alma kept at her home. The booklet was a gift from the family to Florene Dawkins.
From Alma's House
Starting Bid $500
Anne Cargill (1877 – 1965)
Annelieu “Anne” Tigner Cargill was a Columbus, Georgia native. She was married to J. Ralston Cargill, Sr.
Anne’s specialty was watercolors of flowers, particularly camellias, painted from live models. She was an early member of the Columbus Artists' Guild. She was noted for her realistic technique and detail.
Anne Cargill’s works were displayed by the New York Studio Art Guild, the Art Association of Newport, Rhode Island, the Ogunquit, Maine Art Colony, and the Southern States Art League. A collection of more than 100 wildflower works painted by Mrs. Cargill was on display at the University of Georgia for several years. The collection was sponsored by the State Garden Club of Georgia.
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Five pieces from Anne Cargill's Camellias collection are included in the Silent Auction! You can preview each piece below.
Camellias Small Print
10 ¼" h x 8 ¼" w
Starting Bid $25
Camellias Watercolor
18 ½" h x 16" w
Starting Bid $50
Camellias Watercolor
18 ½" h x 16" w
Starting Bid $50
Camellias Watercolor
24" h x 19 ½" w
Starting Bid $75
Camellias Watercolor
32" h x 15 ½" w
Starting Bid $75
Fred C. and Cathy Fussell
One piece from Fred and four pieces from Cathy Fussell are featured in the Silent Auction!
Fred C. Fussell is an artist, writer, and documentary photographer whose work focuses on various aspects of the American South.
As a museum professional, Fussell has served as assistant director of Westville, chief curator of the Columbus Museum, director of the Chattahoochee Folklife Project, and curator of The Gertrude “Ma” Rainey House and Blues Museum. He has served as a curatorial and collections consultant for The Carter Family Fold (Carter Family Collection) Hiltons, Virginia; The L.V. Hull House and Collection, Kosciusko, Mississippi; Margaret’s Grocery Site and Collection, Vicksburg, Mississippi; crafts coordinator, the Georgia Sea Island festival, St. Simons, GA; co-director of the Festival of Southeastern Indian Cultures, Columbus State University; director of the Chattahoochee Folk Festival, Columbus Museum; crafts coordinator, Down Home Music Festival, Atlanta, GA; and as a founding board member for the preservation of St. EOM’s Pasaquan, Buena Vista, Georgia.
His books include Blue Ridge Music Trails: Finding a Place in the Circle (University of North Carolina Press); Pot Liquor: Tales and Recollections Told by the People of Stewart County, Georgia (Westville Historic Handicrafts); A Chattahoochee Album: Images of Traditional People and Folksy Places Around the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley (Historic Chattahoochee Commission); and Memory Paintings of an Alabama Farm, the Paintings of Jessie DuBose Rhoads, Folk Artist (HCC). He wrote several major essays for The New Georgia Guide (University of Georgia Press). He has also written numerous print and online articles for local, regional, and national publications.
In 2004, his book “Blue Ridge Music Trails, Finding a Place in the Circle” was awarded the Presidential Award for Heritage Tourism by President George W. Bush. Fussell was a 1991 recipient of the Georgia Governor's Award in the Humanities.
Fred C. Fussell currently works as an independent artist. He shares a studio at Swift Mills Lofts in Columbus, GA, with his wife, Cathy, the art quilter.​
Ten Mounds
22" x 30" – Acrylic on Canvas
Starting Bid $500
His books include Blue Ridge Music Trails: Finding a Place in the Circle (University of North Carolina Press); Pot Liquor: Tales and Recollections Told by the People of Stewart County, Georgia (Westville Historic Handicrafts); A Chattahoochee Album: Images of Traditional People and Folksy Places Around the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley (Historic Chattahoochee Commission); and Memory Paintings of an Alabama Farm, the Paintings of Jessie DuBose Rhoads, Folk Artist (HCC). He wrote several major essays for The New Georgia Guide (University of Georgia Press). He has also written numerous print and online articles for local, regional, and national publications.
In 2004, his book “Blue Ridge Music Trails, Finding a Place in the Circle” was awarded the Presidential Award for Heritage Tourism by President George W. Bush. Fussell was a 1991 recipient of the Georgia Governor's Award in the Humanities.
Fred C. Fussell currently works as an independent artist. He shares a studio at Swift Mills Lofts in Columbus, GA, with his wife, Cathy, the art quilter.
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Cathy Fussell has been a practicing fiber artist for more than 50 years. She has been sewing and working with textiles since her early childhood in Buena Vista, Georgia, her hometown. Today, she maintains a studio in Columbus, Georgia, where she specializes in making art quilts and related works in fabric. Cathy retired from Columbus State University in 2011 following a long career as an English teacher, first in the Muscogee County School District and later at CSU, where she also directed CSU’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians.
Cathy’s art is held in several public collections. Included among them are two major works in the Fulton County (GA) Public Arts Collection; six large pieces in the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Koch Collection in New York, New York; two pieces in the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery; and two pieces in the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia. Additional examples of her artwork have been exhibited in numerous juried and curated exhibitions across the South and beyond, and her work is held in dozens of private collections nationwide and abroad.
In 2016, Cathy was commissioned by the prestigious Congressional Club in Washington, DC, to make a special quilt for First Lady Michelle Obama. The result was “Apollo Splashdown Revisited – Homage to Alma Woodsey Thomas.” That piece was presented to Mrs. Obama by The Congressional Club at their Annual First Lady’s Luncheon in Washington, DC, during the final year of the Obama presidency. That work will be included in the collection of the (forthcoming) Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago.
Cathy continues to pursue a vigorous schedule of exhibitions and presentations.
Fred and Cathy were founding members of the Pasaquan Preservation Society, and they have remained active in that effort for the past 40 years.
Limited Edition Pillow Set
20" x 20"
Sold as a Set
Starting Bid $100
ARTIST STATEMENT
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“Absence and Presence: Base 2 Numeral System”
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The title of the diptych I have contributed to the Historic Columbus auction for the moving and restoration of the Alma Thomas house is “Absence and Presence: Base 2 Numeral System.”
Notice that the colored pieces on the white quilt correspond exactly to the colored pieces in the black quilt, in that each of the colored pieces on one quilt are actually cut (hand cut, by me) from the corresponding colored piece on the other quilt.
I became fascinated with numeral systems in Mrs. Nellie McCorkle’s 5th grade class in Marion County Elementary School, in 1959, the year that New Math arrived in Buena Vista. And Base 2 was my favorite. Years later, when I was in college, I had a part-time on-campus job as a keypunch operator, and that’s where I learned that base 2 is the foundation of modern computing and electronics.
A base 2 or binary system means that only 2 digits are used: 0 and 1, with 0 meaning absent, and 1 meaning present. On that ol’ keypunch card, each specific space was either punched through (absent or 0), or it was intact (present or 1).
A couple of years later, my first job out of college was as spinner and weaver at Historic Westville in Lumpkin, Georgia. My first task there was to learn how to weave the bed coverings that are known as “overshot coverlets.” In its archive, Westville held several old handwritten coverlet drafts. They look a bit like musical notation. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was once again dealing with a binary system. On any given space on that grid of warp and weft that lies there before the weaver as she works, a specific thread is either absent or present, and the weaver is responsible for filling that space, or leaving it vacant. In recent years there have appeared several articles noting the similarity between computer technology and weaving.
Fast forward to 2016, and I was working on the Alma Thomas-inspired quilt for the Congressional Club to give to First Lady Michelle Obama. My first task with that project was to try to replicate in cloth – Alma Thomas’ brush strokes. Well, right away I realized that this was a tall order indeed. After a good bit of experimentation, I arrived at the method I would use I hand cut hundreds of similarly sized but variously shaped parallelograms from brightly colored cotton duck canvas, and then I picked up each colored piece and cut out of it a shape that looked like a brush stroke. This resulted in two piles – one pile of the piece I intended to use, the interior of the parallelogram -- the would-be brush stroke. But there was another pile – of the detritus – the surround. And I realized that I had created a binary system – and pile of presences and a pile of absences. In the Michelle Obama quilt I used only the presences, but later I started to put the absences to use, too. The diptych I’m offering today is one of those. I’d like to think that Ms. Thomas might have liked it.
Absence and Presence: Base 2 Numeral System
Diptych - 42" Squares
Sold Individually
Starting Bid $500 on each
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Philip H. Giddens (1898 – 1974)
Philip Harris Giddens was a noted American artist and etcher. He adapted a brilliant etching technique to portraiture. He was born in Cuthbert, Georgia, to James Milton Giddens and Haidee Asher Giddens. His father was born in Talbotton, Georgia. The family moved to Columbus in 1901. He graduated from Columbus High School in 1916 and from the Georgia School of Technology in 1920 with a degree in architecture.
Philip enlisted in World War I on 30 September 1918 at age 19 as a private. At the time of his enlistment, his Columbus address was 1300 2nd Avenue. His 1921 passport application listed his occupation as an architect and noted that he was going to France to study architecture as a fellow of the American Field Service. In the early 1920s, Philip was an architect at the New York firm of Starrett and van Vleck, which designed the façade and exterior of the new Columbus High School building.
His works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. He had studios in both New York and Palm Beach.
Image Courtesy of Robie Ray at the Ledger-Enquirer – An exhibition of the work of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Shute of Atlanta opened Sunday afternoon with a reception at the Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts in honor of the artists. Here, the honorees look over a painting with another Atlanta artist, Philip Harris Giddens (center), formerly of Columbus. The Shutes' works are hung in the north and garden galleries of the museum.
The Port of Calvi, Corsica
Drypoint etching, edition of 50
15 ½" H x 18 ½" w
Starting Bid $150
Gloria Mani
Gloria Mani grew up in an art school. Not only is she a second-generation artist, but she is also a second-generation art restorer. She has owned and operated her own business/studio/gallery in Columbus since 1978. Her education includes the New York Arts Student League and Ringling School of Art. She is also one of the fortunate few to study firsthand with master art conservator, Wm. Haney.
She has shown her work in Agora Gallery in SoHo, NYC, Carmel Plein-Air Paint Out Event, Ella Walton Richardson Fine Art, and Hagan Fine Art Gallery in Charleston, S.C., The Telfair Art Fair, John Tucker Fine Art, Kim locovozzi Fine Art in Savannah, Ga., and Plantation Wildlife Arts Festival in Thomasville, Ga.
Gloria's life encompasses art day end and day out. "My work is about a gestural, expressive interpretation of my subject matter, not a literal representation. This is exciting to me, and I hope also to the viewer. Each painting is an adventure. I push the envelope. I don't want to paint the same every time I paint. Therefore, they look like many artists could have painted them. How boring life would be if they all looked the SAME! I have painted thousands of paintings in my lifetime; it is a journey, painting and life. This is my life."
Sketch of "Alia"
Painted from life at "Sketching Under the Skylight," which is held at the Bo Bartlett Center. The frame is customized by the artist with an antiquing finish to complement the painting.
17" h x 20" w
Starting Bid $150
William "Baxley" Oswalt (1940 – 2020)
Baxley Oswalt was born in Phenix City, Alabama, the son of the late Vernon Oswalt and Dora Crowder Oswalt. He attended Auburn University and applied his education and skills to his career as an insurance investigator. Baxley was also widely known in this region due to his personal investments he made in the community.
Baxley loved and taught art. He began his formal training at the age of 14 under the instruction of Lorenzo Griffith and Toni Mani. A hobby painter for many years, he opened The Gallery in Phenix City in 1984.
His paintings reflected the feeling of the rural South, with subject matters ranging from still life and landscapes to wildlife. Many are easily found in many homes and businesses in this region.
McCulloh Train Station, 1990
Signed Oswalt
Watercolor
Frame measurements – 17" h x 23" w
Starting Bid $100
Phenix City Train Station, 1992
Signed Oswalt
Oil
Frame measurements – 26 ½" h x 39" w
Starting Bid $150
Mary Flournoy Passailaigue (1908 – 1989)
Born in Columbus, Georgia, Mary Flournoy Passailaigue is an internationally recognized artist. She was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, at Tranquilla. Though residing in Columbus for the duration of her life, her paintings represent her travels, capturing scenes from almost every part of the world.
An accomplished still-life and landscape painter, Passailaigue was an active member of the Columbus arts community and played an instrumental role in establishing the Columbus Museum. Among her many achievements, she was one of the first women to be inducted into the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City. "Painting to me is pure happiness - trying to catch and express the joy and ever-changing beauty the world offers. It is an exciting and utterly consuming pursuit."
Double-Sided Watercolor
15" h x 22" w (not framed)
Starting Bid $150
