PAINTINGS INSTALLED IN ARCHIVES READING ROOM
County Archivist Ned Irwin with the paintings prior to their being hung in the Reading Room.
The last two pieces in Jonesborough artist Peggy Root’s quartet of seasonal paintings for the Mildred Spaulding Kozsuch Memorial Reading Room were installed on March 31st, 2021. These paintings compliment two other paintings hung in early 2020 that depict Spring and Summer scenes in Washington County. (For more on these, see an earlier website article.) The paintings were commissioned by the Friends of the Washington County, Tennessee Archives and are provided to the department as permanent loans.
The Fall painting is entitled “Nolichucky River (Bumpass Cove) in Autumn.” The Winter painting is titled “Winter Day, Tipton-Haynes.” Both paintings are oil paintings on Belgian linen canvases. The 4-feet high by 6-feet wide paintings are encased in handcrafted frames made from locally sourced wood. The paintings were installed by Don and Jacob Muldoon, Jonesborough contractors.
Peggy Nichols Root is a plein air painter, one who paints outdoors amidst the scene she is painting. And she does this in all kinds of weather from sun and snow to everything in between. The paintings in the archives were painted in this way. She has been called “the definitive painter of the Southern countryside.” Growing up, she spent the school year in Florida and the summers in Fontana in western North Carolina, where her father had an art school. Despite having a painter for a father, Peggy began her career as a park naturalist in the Great Smoky Mountains. Eventually, she followed her father and became a painter. Being a plein art painter allows her to combine her love of painting with her love of the outdoors. She also married a painter, artist Tom Root. For nearly thirty years now, they have lived and raised a family in Jonesborough.
The archives thanks the FOA for the commission and Peggy for the wonderful paintings that will be enjoyed by anyone visiting the department, even if you don’t come to research.
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2020 News Articles
September 14, 2020 Secretary of State Tre Hargett Tours Archives
August 12, 2020 Historic Postcard Collection Now Online
July 15, 2020 Circuit Court Case Files Open For Research
January 8, 2020 Lucy Kennerly Gump – tribute
January 29, 2020 Summer in the Archives Painting
