Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961-Now

Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961–Now is a lavishly illustrated scholarly publication that traces how a diverse range of American artists have grappled with nature, identity, environmentalism, spirituality, and race in the context of the unique natural and cultural histories of an undeveloped, 26,000-acre barrier island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, over the last 65 years.  The book focuses on the legacies of the Ossabaw Island Project and Genesis, a pair of revolutionary multidisciplinary residency programs that ran on the island between 1961 and 1982. By challenging notions about American artist colonies during the last century, this volume not only shines a light on how artists used Ossabaw to retreat from their lives and concentrate on their work, but also as a subject in its own right. A series of essays and remembrances reveals how various aspects of the island enabled artists to reconnect art to the American landscape, beginning during a period of rapid postwar transformation. The book also features an expansive chronology that highlights both the evolution of the Ossabaw Island Project and Genesis programs and their legacies.

Edited by Erin Dunn and Beryl Gilothwest

Contributions by Henri Cole, Erin Dunn, Beryl Gilothwest, Vaughnette Goode-Walker, Allison Janae Hamilton, Thomas Lax, Megan Mayhew Bergman, and Wini Wood

208 pages with full-color plates

Hardcover

Published by Telfair Books