The Franklin G. Burroughs–Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is the Grand Strand's only art museum — free admission, opened in 1997, and housed in a story of its own: a 1924 villa built by Cannon Mills' Eugene Thomas Cannon and his wife Emma. Its own film tells both stories and closes with the Villa Club campaign to carry the house into its next hundred years.

Art Museum Villa FINAL

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

The Art Museum's own film tells two stories: the museum that opened in 1997 with ever-changing exhibitions, and the villa that houses it — built in 1924 by Eugene Thomas Cannon of Cannon Mills and his wife Emma, a century-old house with a history of family survival and reinvention. The film closes with the Villa Club campaign to carry the building into its next hundred years.

Key takeaways
  • The museum opened in 1997; admission is free
  • Its home is a 1924 villa built by Cannon Mills' Eugene Thomas Cannon
  • The building's centennial story anchors the film

Virtual Tour: Bishop Collections of Antique Maps + Historical Prints

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Curator Liz Miller leads a virtual tour of the Bishop Collection of antique maps and prints: 30 works dated 1606 to 1863, donated to the museum in 1999 by Dorothy Jones Bishop in memory of her husband George. The tour explains how cartography evolved — compass, telescope and sextant sharpening Europe's picture of the New World map by map.

Key takeaways
  • 30 antique maps and prints, dated 1606-1863
  • Donated in 1999 by Dorothy Jones Bishop
  • The tour traces the evolution of mapmaking technology

Brian Rutenberg: Synchronicity gallery talk

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Artist Brian Rutenberg speaks at the museum's opening of his exhibition, thanking the staff and his dealers and reflecting on the two families of a life — the one you're born into and the one you make. The gallery talk ranges over his process and the discipline of the studio, including trusting the work to tell you when to stop.

Key takeaways
  • A gallery talk by painter Brian Rutenberg at his exhibition opening
  • Reflections on process, discipline and the artist's 'two families'
  • The museum hosts working artists for talks alongside exhibitions

The curator's virtual tours

Because the museum films its exhibitions properly, this page is the most narrated in the Myrtle Beach build. Curator Liz Miller leads most of them: the Bishop Collection of antique maps and prints — 30 works dated 1606 to 1863, donated in 1999, tracing how compass, telescope and sextant sharpened Europe's picture of the New World; Reinier Llanes' When There Is No Frontier; Voice Lessons, four women artists answering the silencing of women's voices; Chellis Baird's Tethered, canvases woven before they are painted; and Sara Golish's Birds of Paradise portraits.

Artists in the room

Painter Brian Rutenberg speaks at his own opening about process, discipline and the artist's 'two families.' USC professor Mana Hewitt introduces Persistence — 67 medals honoring women who, in her words, plotted along and persisted, from a series of 103 made over four years. The set closes with the museum's civic ritual: the annual Horry–Georgetown high schools juried exhibition, more than 350 entries from 10 schools, 91 accepted, with visitors voting a People's Choice.

Sources: the 9 videos on this page, all with transcripts — the strongest narrated set in this wave.

Mana Hewitt: Persistence | Virtual Tour

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

USC art professor Mana Hewitt introduces Persistence, her exhibition of medals honoring women who paved the way — through suffrage, politics, science, athletics and dance. Sixty-seven medals hang in the show from a body of 103 made over four years, each a small portrait of a woman who, in Hewitt's words, plotted along and persisted.

Key takeaways
  • 67 medals in the exhibition; 103 made in the series
  • Subjects span suffrage, politics, science, athletics and dance
  • Hewitt teaches in the University of South Carolina's art department

Reynier Llanes: When There Is No Frontier | Virtual Tour

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Curator Liz Miller presents When There Is No Frontier, the museum's exhibition of Reinier Llanes, whose mark-making she describes as a jazz-like symphony of pigment. The virtual tour follows the Cuban-born painter's windows and views, arranged to pull the viewer's attention, imagination and heart in step by step.

Key takeaways
  • Reinier Llanes exhibition: When There Is No Frontier
  • Curator-led virtual tour of the paintings
  • Llanes' style is described as jazz-like swashes of pigment

Virtual Exhibit Tour | Voice Lessons: Eli Corbin, Fran Gardner, Lisa Stroud, Beau Wild

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Curator Liz Miller's virtual tour of Voice Lessons, an exhibition celebrating women through four artists: Eli Corbin of Asheville, Fran Gardner of Heath Springs, Lisa Stroud of Cary and Bo Wilder of Port Orange. The multimedia works take up the silencing of women's voices across centuries — and answer it with strength, tenacity and courage.

Key takeaways
  • Four women artists from across the Southeast
  • Themes: women's voices, silence and resilience
  • Curator-led virtual tour recorded when the museum was closed

Watch: Franklin G. Burroughs Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum, guided

3 videos · summaries from the actual guides

Chellis Baird: Tethered. Virtual Tour

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Curator Liz Miller presents Tethered by Spartanburg native Celeste Baird, who blurs painting, sculpture and textiles. Baird starts from hand-woven structures, then paints, dyes and sculpts the canvas into dimensional brushstrokes — tangled compositions built from twists, knots and upcycled materials.

Key takeaways
  • Celeste Baird weaves her canvases before painting them
  • Works blur painting, sculpture and textile art
  • Baird trained in textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design

Virtual Exhibit Tour | Sara Golish: Birds of Paradise

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Curator Liz Miller tours Birds of Paradise, Toronto artist Sarah Golish's series of exotic portraits of women. Golish collages over the conventions of oil portraiture, reading the genre through ecofeminism to question what its symbols of beauty and status have meant.

Key takeaways
  • Sarah Golish is a Toronto-based figurative artist
  • Birds of Paradise reworks oil-portrait conventions through ecofeminism
  • Curator-led virtual tour of the portrait series

2023 Annual Horry-Georgetown County High Schools Juried Art Exhibition

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

Artist Jennifer York returns to the museum to judge its annual high school art competition: more than 350 entries from 10 schools, 91 works accepted. The film tours the 2023 exhibition — pen and ink, charcoal, painting, photography and digital media in 2D, and an especially strong 3D field of sculpture, sewing and ceramics — and invites visitors to vote for the People's Choice Award.

Key takeaways
  • More than 350 entries from 10 schools; 91 accepted
  • The annual juried show covers 2D and 3D media
  • Visitors vote for a People's Choice Award

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