The Roots Exhibit: Late Artists of Pike County features 24 artists who left broad strokes on the Pike County community. Some of the artwork on display at the Johnson Center for the Arts through December 28 can only, with the exception of this exhibit, be viewed in private homes.

The Roots Exhibit: Late Artists of Pike County is a unique opportunity to learn more about those who laid the foundation for the strong arts community that exists in Pike County today.

Among them is Beverly Bunn whose unique watercolors are established among private collectors and art museums throughout the nation.

“The sensitive treatment of Beverly Bunn’s many subjects is complimented by her master technique of watercolor painted on rice paper,” said Wiley White, Johnson Center for the Arts development director. “The inherent grain background of the paper becomes an integral part of the finished watercolor. The varied subject matter of her artwork includes animals, children, trees and flowers.”

Beverly Bunn was the third generation in her family to be an artist. Her mother, Catharine Lowe Beverly, was an art professor at Troy State University. Bunn received her bachelor of arts degree from Auburn University and, while at Auburn, she studied under Harry Lowe of the Smithsonian Institution. She married Wiley C. Bunn, an aerospace engineer at NASA in Huntsville.

“Beverly Bunn received many First Place and Best of Show Awards in juried and non-juried shows throughout the nation,” White said. “She was selected ‘Honored Exhibitor’ at the Birmingham Festival of Arts and was chosen by the Alabama State Council on the Arts as one of Alabama’s premier artists to exhibit in the Governor’s Gallery in the State Capitol Building. She also received the “Award of Merit” from the Utah Watercolor Society.”

Bunn served as the president of the Huntsville Art League and Museum Association and was the vice president of the Alabama Art League.

She exhibited her work in one-woman shows at museums and private galleries in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Washington, DC.

Her watercolors have been exhibited in the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Georgia; the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee; the Gadsden Museum of Art in Gadsden; the Birmingham Museum of Fine Arts, Birmingham; and at Fisher Galleries in Washington, DC.