Ethel Darline Guest


Ethel Darline Guest was an African American women artist. She taught at South Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Early life and education

Guest was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on June 9, 1929. Her two parents were custodian and craftsman Alfonzo Guest and schoolteacher Pauline Gardner. She attended received her BFA in North Carolina A&T State University, and also studied at Howard University in 1950, New York School of Interior Design in 1951, and Boston University in 1954.

Work

Guest was primarily a painter who worked with oil and acrylic paint. Her work tends to be nonrepresentational; she usually focuses on the relationship between colors and textures, creating rhythm and harmony from geometric forms and shapes. Her work is inspired by and extremely influenced by nature and traveling, depicting the emotions she gets inside her work. She has specifically said:
"I create a visual symphony of related tones filled with form-soft geometric forms-planes, angles, hard-edge curves-quiet forms that stretch into space or curl up, spinning into -decorative forms that shout with bold colors, evenly applied," and "y work reflects a tremendous love and fascination for nature, events relative to the times and a love of travel. Forms of all kinds inhabit my work reflecting moods and feelings expressing lyrics energy, a love of experiment and various influences brought back, impressions gained from travel, both national and international."
Three known paintings done by Guest include:Trip the Light Fantastic Fine Tuning
  • ''Broadway''

Publications

Guest provided two illustrations for "No Boundaries at All", a work of fiction written by Laurel Trivelpiece published in the 6th volume of Red Clay Reader, attributed to her as E. D. Guest. Her two paintings, Fine Tuning and Broadway were reproduced in Artists U.S.A., 1974/75, attributed to her as Guest, Ethel D.. Her painting Trip the Light Fantastic was reproduced in the catalog Forever Free: Art by African-American Women 1862–1980. She was mentioned in the February 28 1978 issue of The A&T Register, a student newspaper at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, as a notable figure of African American women artists alongside artists Glenda Wharton, Janice Davis, Lana Henderson, E. Rainey Heff, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sharon E. Sutton, Mabel Bullock, and Mildred Thompson. In 1982, she compiled a collection of poetry written by students of Anita Stroud Foundation titled Golden Fruit From Little Black Seed.

Awards and honors

Source:Who's Who of American Women, 1977–78; World's Who's Who of Women
  • Honorable Mention, 4th Annual "Biblical Interpretation d'Art-Charlotte Art League", Charlotte, N.C., 1974
  • Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Work in Charlotte, N.C.
  • Charlotte O.I.C. Award, 1972
  • Nominee for Gold Rose Award – "Salute to Outstanding Career Women Who Work" sponsored by the Career-Charlotte Central Association, 1971
  • Works reproduced in Soviet Womans Magazine Award and Der Bildener Kunst, 1965

Exhibitions

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Collections

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