Frist Art Museum's Storied Strings exhibit tells American story through the guitar

What’s more American than apple pie or baseball? The guitar, it seems, and arguably by a wide margin.

“Americans have a particular predilection for guitars,” said Mark Scala, chief curator at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville. “People either play guitar or know someone who does, and most of us have incredibly powerful memories of musical performances with it.”

“Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art,” a new exhibition opening May 25 at the Frist, offers viewers a fresh lens for guitar gazing. Showcasing over 100 works of art from paintings, sculpture, photography, videos and more plus seminal instruments by Fender, Gibson and C.F. Martin & Co., the show explores the guitar’s symbolism in American art from the late 18th century to the present, chronicling the visual stories it tells about the American experience.

“The guitar is more than just a beautiful object,” Scala said. “It’s a way of understanding changes and transitions in American attitudes. It can tell us a lot about the culture of the moment it was produced, whether it was in the 1890s or 1930s.”

Organized by Dr. Leo G. Mazow, the Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the show is the first of its kind to explore the guitar as a visual motif in American art. Works by artists such as John Baldassari, Thomas Hart Benton, Lonnie Holley, Dorothea Lange and Annie Leibovitz are organized into 12 thematic sections with titles like “Leisure, Culture, and Comfort: 19th Century America,” “Blues and Folk,” “A Change is Coming” and “Iconic Women of Early Country Music.”

The show “tackles a whole universe,” Scala said, and each section considers everything from early depictions of the guitar, cowboy motifs, and influential women and black artists, to guitar-making techniques and the guitar’s role in social and political resistance. 

For the Frist presentation, Scala added 19 selections to amplify Nashville’s rich legacy of guitars, guitarists and guitar makers. He sourced photographs, paintings and videos from the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Tennessee State Museum and other Middle Tennessee collections.

“I wanted to tell a more complete story of Nashville, a.k.a. Guitar Town, in a way that fits with the established curatorial approach,” Scala said. Highlights include a Red Grooms lithograph of Elvis Presley displayed next to a video of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the “Godmother of Rock and Roll,” playing the electric guitar. Also added were Thomas Hart Benton’s 1975 painting "The Sources of Country Music," a video of Marty Robbins playing “El Paso,” and images of Dolly Parton on her tour bus and of Webb Pierce next to his guitar-shaped swimming pool.

Scala also included a video of Amethyst Kiah and the Del McCoury Band playing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” at the Grand Ole Opry. He said he could not resist displaying the video next to an iconic 1943 photograph of Guthrie holding his guitar emblazoned with his famous credo “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”.

“Storied Strings” is not just about images of people with guitars, though. Scala said it is more about the disparate ideas, emotions and memories the images conjure in each viewer’s mind. He notes an Annie Leibovitz photograph in the show of Bruce Springsteen airborne with his guitar in front of the American flag. The image was used to promote the musician’s 1984 “Born in the USA” tour.

“When you see it,” he said, “it likely triggers all these associations of the moment you heard that song or how it’s been used and oftentimes misused. A lot of people think the song is patriotic, but it really scrutinizes the story of the promise of America in relation to its realities.”

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As comprehensive as the exhibition is, there are many more guitars and their stories for visitors to experience all over Nashville. Scala said he hopes the show is a gateway for tourists who may not know about all the other museums and collections in Music City.

“If there’s something you don’t see here, say in the 'Iconic Women of Early Country Music' section, just go down the street to the Country Music Hall of Fame," he said. "If you feel like the black contribution to American music isn’t complete, go down the street to the National Museum of African American Music. Or go check out the guitar collection at Belmont University, or the Jefferson Street Sound Museum, or the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum.”

The companion exhibit “Guitar Town: Picturing Performance Today,” on view through Aug. 20 in the Frist’s free Conte Community Arts Gallery, also highlights Nashville’s diverse guitar-centric offerings. The show celebrates Nashville’s contemporary music scene with works by 10 local photographers that capture up-and-coming and established musicians, like Jack White, Brandi Carlile, Adia Victoria, William Tyler and Marty Stuart performing in venues across the city.

For a deeper dive into the exhibition, don’t miss curator, Dr. Leo G. Mazow’s free, illustrated lecture on Thursday, May 25 at 6:30 p.m. in the Frist auditorium.

If you go

What: “Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art”

When: May 25-Aug. 13

Where: Frist Art Museum, 919 Broadway

Hours: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays and 1-5:30 p.m. Sundays. Closed Tuesdays, Wednesdays

Tickets: $15, free for members and visitors 18 and younger

More information: https://fristartmuseum.org/

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Frist Art Museum's Storied Strings shows guitars make art and music