Bethany Windham-Engle exhibits artwork at UWA

By Staff
special to The Star
LIVINGSTON Polymer paintings, colored pencil drawings and straight unmanipulated photographs make up an exhibit opening in September at the University of West Alabama.
The exhibit of artwork by Bethany Windham-Engle will open with a reception Sept. 19, from 2 p.m.-4 p.m., in Webb Hall Parlor. Windham-Engle will attend the reception and opening. The exhibit will run in Webb Hall Art Gallery through Dec. 18.
Windham-Engle's intimate observation and contemplation of nature is expressed through a wide range of subject matter, including portraits, still life, and land, city and seascapes.
The widow of the late sculptor Frank Engle (whose work was exhibited at the UWA campus in 2003), Windham-Engle began teaching in the art department at the University of Alabama in her early 20s.
During the 1960s, she was a member of the team of music and art instructors who began the integration of the Tuscaloosa County School System. Later in the decade, she was instrumental in the design of an experimental program in art education for the University of Alabama. In 1972, when the federal court ordered Alabama's mental health system to institute treatment of patients, she chaired several programs at Bryce Hospital.
Windham-Engle established and chaired the Department of Art at Shelton State Community College and chaired the first catalog committee that designed the degree programs and course descriptions of the new college. She also wrote the art curriculum and course descriptions for all of Alabama's two-year colleges.
Windham-Engle's lifesize portrait of Shelton State Community College's first president, Dr. Leo Sumner, hangs in the fine arts wing of the college. She also taught art at the University of West Alabama, Bevill State Community College and Stillman College.
Prior to receiving her bachelor of fine arts, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Alabama, Windham-Engle attended Stephens College and was one of eight students from a group of 2,000 invited to spend the summer in Florence, Italy, where she and her husband later lived and worked. Her travels have also included Mexico and Cuba, as well as Great Britain, Scandinavia and the European continent.
Working in her studio at Windy Hill Farm in Tuscaloosa County, Windham-Engle exhibits her work in the Gazette Gallery, Artist's Row, downtown Northport, Ala. Collections containing her work include Moon, Wa1ker, Coats, Ignatz, Kneeland, Guthrie, Reynolds, Grimes, Leech, Kubiszyn, Matthews, Thompson, Charles, Gunter and Fleenot.