DeKalb History Museum
We are currently offering three exhibits on the main floor of the historic DeKalb County Courthouse. All exhibits are open Monday - Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Artrospective
Artrospective: 25 Years of the Decatur Arts Festival
The Decatur Arts Alliance marks the milestone 25th anniversary of the Decatur Arts Festival with Artrospective. This exhibit highlights the history of the event which grew from humble local beginnings to become a wildly popular regional festival. The collection includes festival posters and logos, T-shirts, press clippings, and loads of festival memorabilia. A collection of photos taken on the square in the early 1990s provides newcomers and visitors a unique perspective on the evolution of the city.
The exhibit was curated by Decatur Active Living Assistant Director Cheryl Burnette, who served as the executive director of the Arts Alliance and managed the Arts Festival from 1999 to 2008.
Artospective will be located in the DeKalb History Center until September 30.
Dairies in DeKalb
Funding for the Dairy exhibit was provided in part by proceeds from the 2009 Great Decatur Craft Beer Festival.
Visit Rosebud again! Our exhibit focuses on the history of dairy farming in DeKalb County in the 20th century. The boll weevil’s attack on cotton farming led to the rise of dairy farms across DeKalb. The one-room exhibit contains colorful signs, artifacts such as a route book and milk bottles, and even includes a life-sized replica of Rosebud, the famous cow mascot for Mathis Dairy.
Highlights from the Guy Hayes Collection: Food, Fun & Fashion in the Modern Era
This exhibit represents a small selection of black and white photographs from the Hayes collection and provides a unique view of food trends, clothing styles and recreational diversions of the 1950s and 1960s.
Guy Hayes was a professional freelance photographer from 1944 - 1983. He graduated from Clarkston High School and served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he settled in Avondale Estates. Hayes was a regular contributor to The Atlanta Journal, The Atlanta Constitution and The DeKalb News/Sun. Over 11,000 of his original negatives were donated to the History Center in 1984. Although very little documentation accompanied this collection, Hayes’ artistic work reveals a prolific talent with an incisive eye.
Hayes’ work included current events or staged shoots to illustrate stories as requested by these newspapers. This resulted in a lack of diversity of the Georgians represented during these decades. As Georgia was segregated in its public arenas, so too were its newspapers and their readers.
A grant from the Decatur Beer Festival helped us to begin digitization of these negatives in 2010. During this process, we realized the collection was much larger than originally estimated. Some of the negatives show signs of age, but these rarely detract from the overall quality of Hayes’ work.
Athos Menaboni Mural - "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"
OFF SITE EXHIBIT - Our beautiful Menaboni mural has been placed on loan to Brick Store Pub (125 E. Court Sq, Decatur GA 30030). This large piece includes 15 mosaic panels created from about 3,000 eggshells! Mills B. Lane, Jr., then president of The Citizens and Southern Bank, commissioned Athos Menaboni to create this piece for the lobby of the C&S Emory branch (1237 Clairmont Road) in 1958. The mosaic is divided into three pictorial panels with two title panels of Japanese Nakora wood creating a triptych. The title panels read, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Born in Italy in 1895, Menaboni became a well-known artist in Georgia from the 1930s on. Between 1951 and 1969, he was commissioned by Mills Lane to paint murals in various C&S banks. Menaboni is often hailed as the heir of James Audubon and painted over l50 species of birds, eventually publishing Menaboni's Birds, in 1950.
The piece is on loan to the Brick Store Pub, and we are grateful to the owners for providing such a prominent spot to display this unique painting. The new installation was unveiled on June 24, complete with a fundraiser hosted by the Brick Store Pub as part of their 15th anniversary celebration. We are thrilled with this partnership and hope the Menoboni is enjoyed by the public for many years to come. Click here for Brick Store Pub’s website.
