By Bonita Buford, Gantt Center

Vivian Davidson Hewitt visited the Gantt Center on March 12th to talk about her remarkable life, the art of collecting, and the stories behind the John & Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art. More than 150 patrons filled the Center’s West Gallery to hear Mrs. Hewitt spin tales from the couple’s first acquisition – a Picasso print purchased at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art – to their friendships with artists including master collagist Romare Bearden and wife Nanette.

Hewitt — now a vibrant 91-year-old – and her late husband John began collecting on their honeymoon and continued to give art to each other as gifts to celebrate anniversaries and other special occasions. They amassed a collection of pieces, approaching 500, during their 50-year marriage.

After acquiring Haitian paintings for fifteen years, Hewitt’s husband suggested that they start collecting work from their own African-American culture. Her husband’s sister owned a gallery in New York, two of Hewitt’s cousins were celebrated painters and several of the African-American artists they later collected were already friends — as evidenced by personal messages scrawled along with artists’ signatures on some of the images in the collection.

The Hewitts were committed to promoting African-American art and were committed to supporting its creators. In 1998, Bank of America purchased fifty-eight of the two-dimensional works to form the Hewitt Collection. It was pledged to the Gantt Center (then known as the Afro-American Cultural Center) and is currently on display in its entirety for the first time in Charlotte. The exhibition will be up through August.

Romey — as Hewitt called Bearden — loved cats, and lots of them, she revealed. Hewitt didn’t. So she never sat down in his studio. Was it difficult for the Hewitts to part with the collection, someone asked. Not at all, Mrs. Hewitt remembered. In tribute to the artists, the Hewitts always felt that they were merely protectors of the work. They hoped to share it with a broader community and wanted to ensure that the painters, illustrators, collagists and sculptors received recognition when so few African-American artists were represented by mainstream galleries.

Buy what speaks to you, what feeds your soul was always Hewitt’s mantra. It was also her final word to those gathered. When asked if she is still buying art, Hewitt grinned. “Once a collector, always a collector,” she concluded.