Telfair Museums introduces free admission program with opening of landmark Golding exhibit

Telfair Museums is introducing their largest free-admission offering in the museum's 136 years.

Starting Saturday, locals will get the opportunity to visit the Telfair Academy and the Jepson Center for free every Saturday and Sunday until Aug. 28. The offering will include Chatham, Bryan, Effingham and Liberty counties and extend to Beaufort and Jasper counties in South Carolina.

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"The slogan of our strategic plan is 'Telfair for all,'" said Benjamin Simons, Telfair Museums' executive director and CEO.

"And it really speaks to what I see as the heart of the mission, which is to serve our public, to serve our communities and make the museum as accessible and open as possible — a place where everybody feels like this is my museum. Telfair is a place for me."

Broadening access

This program is one more building block in Telfair Museums' push to broaden museum access for local residents. Telfair regularly hosts free family weekends, and at the start of February, the museum introduced a partnership with Live Oak Public Libraries that gives library cardholders the chance to visit the Telfair Museums for free with their membership.

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Effingham county resident Charity Miles tries to go to the museums at least once or twice a year. When Telfair introduced its free library pass program, Miles found it easier to make more frequent visits, especially with her kids.

"I think they're [the library passes] fantastic. I think a lot of people don't go to museums or local places because it's cost-prohibitive. So, having those accessible really makes a big difference.

"When people travel they make an effort to see the sites and visit special places, but locals don't. Having the local library offer passes to sites makes it possible for people in the community to be part of their community and know the art and history that is around them."

Exhibitions on display

The Jepson Center's "The Art of William O. Golding: Hard Knocks, Hardships, and Lots of Experience" exhibit opens on Friday and shines a light on a unique part of art and history. The exhibit was organized by senior curator Harry DeLorme and captures Golding's remarkable life through illustration.

The African American self-taught artist was kidnapped from the Savannah waterfront in the 1880s and tricked aboard a sailing vessel where he spent nearly 50 years of his life circling the globe on a variety of sailing and steamships before returning to the U.S Marine Hospital in Savannah. More than 70 of his drawings depicting his memories of the ports he visited will be on display for the first time and will be the largest ever presentation of his work.

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"I think, with Golding, in particular, there is a sense that anyone can be an artist, that maybe all of us are artists in some ways, and that, for some folks, their journey to becoming an artist is very long. In Golding's case, around the world dozens of times before very late in life starting to draw without any formal training and yet producing a remarkable body of work," said Crawford Alexander Mann III, Telfair Museums' chief curator.

The exhibit will be on display until Aug. 28, the same day the free admission program ends. If the program succeeds, they hope to apply for special funding through grants to continue the program in a "sustainable fashion."

With the free admission program, Simons said Telfair Museums is on track to get back to the all-time highest admission in its history at 250,000 people in a year, a feat that would be considerable considering the effects of the pandemic in the past two years on museum attendance for locals and tourists alike.

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But with the increase in public and educational programs at Telfair, Simons has no doubt that they'll surpass that record in the future.

"We believe that free admission for locals is is one way to really make the frequency of local visitation increase. But really more than just the frequency of visitation, really the kind of sense of belonging, the sense of affiliation, with Telfair."

Other upcoming exhibits on display during the free admission period include "#art912 N/um" (opens April 29) and "BLOW UP: Inflatable Contemporary Art" (opens May 27). Currently on display are "Bruce Davidson: Face to Face" (through May 1) and "Contemporary Spotlight: New Acquisitions from the Brandywine Workshop" (through May 1) and "Beyond: Light, Color, and Illusion" (through Aug. 7).

"I hope that our visitors, by being able to come to the museum for free locally, will see that there are fewer barriers to access to the museum. But also, for themselves, personally, there should be as few barriers as possible to your own creativity. What inspires you? What do you like?"

Check out all the current and upcoming exhibitions here.

Laura Nwogu is the quality of life reporter for Savannah Morning News. Contact her at LNwogu@gannett.com. Twitter: @lauranwogu_

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Telfair Museums introduces free admission program for Savannah area