Mississippi Artist Andrew Bucci exhibit to open at museum November 14

The work of Mississippi artist Andrew Bucci: Modern Moments will open Thursday, November 14, 2024, 5:30 – 7 p.m. at the Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany.

Bucci, a native of Vicksburg, has an inspiring body of work, many pieces residing in famous art collections throughout the United States.

One of Bucci’s early fashion-themed drawings, 1930s. (Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History)

Collections featuring Bucci’s art include the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Johnson Collection, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, among others.

“We are excited to host this exhibit of a talented Mississippi artist. His work is expressive and fun. We hope people will come and celebrate the arts. At the opening there will be a gallery talk at 6 p.m. about the artist and his work. We will also have live music and refreshments, said Jill Smith, director.

Born in 1922, he showed an early interest in art. Bucci’s career spanned nearly eight decades. His work is primarily watercolor and oils, and he developed a modernist style.

He studied architectural engineering at Louisiana State University and worked summers for the Mississippi Highway Department in Jackson, where he also began taking watercolor lessons from Marie Hull, one of Mississippi’s most prominent 20th century artists. They remained close friends until her death in 1980.

After graduating from LSU in 1943, Bucci was accepted into the Army Air Force Weather Officer Training Program at New York University. During World War II, he drew weather maps for the 18th Weather Squadron at airbases in England and Scotland.

It was while stationed at Orly Air Base near Paris after the war’s end that he studied life drawing at the Académie Julian.

Bucci’s earliest drawings reveal a strong interest in fashion and theatrical motifs. After completing his undergraduate degree in Chicago, he moved to New York City and studied fashion illustration at Parsons School of Design for several months. Over the course of his career, fashion-themed figures were focal points in many of his drawings and paintings.

Bucci’s military training in meteorology led to a career with the National Weather Service near Washington, D.C., where he settled in 1956. He became active in D.C.-area art circles and served as president of the Washington Water Color Association from 1963-65. He also maintained a steady presence in the Mississippi art scene. In 1967, his magnolia design appeared on the U.S. postage stamp commemorating Mississippi’s 150th anniversary of statehood. Through the decades, he exhibited work and led painting workshops with the Mississippi Art Colony.

In 2009, Bucci received a Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for lifetime achievement in the visual arts from the Mississippi Arts Commission and Gov. Haley Barbour; and in 2012, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. His artwork was selected as the signature image for the 2014 and 2023 USA International Ballet Competition.

Bucci died on Nov. 16, 2014, shortly after resettling in Vicksburg. He was 92.

“About pictures, I don’t know what my conceptions are,” Bucci once wrote. “Guess the word that best explains what I look for is ‘felicity.’ It doesn’t have to be abstract or realistic, or loud or subtle. Just what seems to have been the right idea done the right way.”

Jill Smith, Director
Union County Heritage Museum
114 Cleveland Street
New Albany, MS 38652