Louisville Artists in book

Louisville artists, gallery owners get national attention in book

By Larry Muhammadlmuhammad@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

For 20 years, it's been a leading African-American art gallery and sponsor of the Philadelphia International Art Expo, which attracts 150 artists and 50,000 patrons and collectors from across the country in a weekend.

Now the Philadelphia-based October Gallery has published "Connecting People With Art," a 500-page coffee-table book that showcases scores of artists and industry professionals -- including Louisville gallery owners Cathy and Walter Shannon and artists C.J. Fletcher and Eugene Thomas.

"The book is amazing," said Walter Shannon, who owns The Famous E&S Gallery, 108 S. 10th St., with his wife, Cathy. "I think it does a great job of researching black art into the 21st century, and helps expose a lot of newer artists, and a lot of dealers who have made these artists successful. It gets into Alonzo Adams and William Tolliver and Paul Goodnight but also has Joshua Johnson, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence."

The Shannons are pictured in the book in formal dress, about to leave their home for a Kentucky Derby event. Also included in the book are paintings by Fletcher ("Real Men Pray," of a man kneeling in a bed of flowers) and her husband, Thomas ("Against the Wind #2," of a woman clutching a bundled baby), in addition to photographs of each artist.

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