ATHENS, GA.- The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia has received the 2020 Mary Ellen LoPresti Award for exhibition catalogues from the Southeast Chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). The LoPresti Award normally goes to one scholarly publication and one exhibition catalogue, but two books from the museum tied for the latter award: “Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi” (published with the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art) and “Material Georgia 1733 – 1900: Two Decades of Scholarship.”

“Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi” followed the exhibition on the same name, on view at Spelman College from January to May 2018. The book was the first major publication of Roberts’ work and features over 80 full-page and full-color illustrations of her art. The jury wrote that it was “a beautiful, unique, and timely catalog. The design [by Fold Four] is an exceptional balance of text and image, with photos from the exhibition itself, and the artist’s work interacting with the essays. The work also contains an interview with the artist and a thoughtful forward by Mary Schmidt Campbell, the Spelman College President. With ample captions and notes, as well as material relevant to current areas of African American scholarship, this catalog content would add value to any collection.”

“Material Georgia” accompanied the exhibition of the same name, on view at the Georgia Museum of Art from December 2019 to March 2020. Assembled by the museum’s curator of decorative arts, Dale L. Couch, it reviewed two decades’ worth of scholarship by the museum’s Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts and nearly 300 years of decorative arts in the state. The jury wrote, “With sections on Silver, Furniture, Textiles, Basketry, Pottery, and Paintings, the history and material culture of all of Georgia’s people are covered. Highly recommend for research collections in the Southeast region.”

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is the largest international professional organization devoted to art librarianship. The Southeast Chapter of ARLIS/NA established the LoPresti Publication Award Competition in 1985 to recognize and encourage excellence in art publications issued in the Southeastern United States. The publication awards are named for Mary Ellen LoPresti, who was the Design Librarian at the Harrye B. Lyons Design Library, North Carolina State University, until her death in 1985.

The winning publications are kept in the ARLIS/NA Southeast Chapter archives at Duke University. The Georgia Museum of Art last won the award in 2017, for “Gifts and Prayers: the Romanovs and Their Subjects,” by Asen Kirin.

This year’s judges were Patricia Gimenez (Savannah College of Art and Design), Ann Holderfield (University of South Carolina Beaufort) and Sauda Mitchell (Savannah College of Art and Design).