Exploring Black themes, ETSU’s Reece Museum wins major award

East Tennessee State University’s Reece Museum has received an Award of Excellence from the Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM) for the long-running 2023 exhibition, “An Exuberant Spirit: The Sammie L. Nicely Collection.” Curated to show the breadth of the full collection, “An Exuberant Spirit” featured 85 artworks from the Reece Museum’s permanent collection and was on exhibit from May-December 2023.  

Named for artist Sammie L. Nicely, this growing collection of post-modern and contemporary art explored Black imagery and themes, representing a variety of media forms. The museum received 50 artworks from Nicely’s personal collection in 2021, and since then, the museum has been actively collecting additional pieces that support Nicely’s legacy as an artist and educator – advancing cultural awareness and promoting the arts in his home region of East Tennessee.  

This exhibition marked the first major showing of representative works from the collection, and 3,846 visitors experienced “Exuberant Spirit” in person, making it one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions in recent years.  

The exhibition’s impact reached far beyond the museum’s gallery thanks to a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program. The grant supports: 

The ongoing development of a digital exhibition that will feature all 197 artifacts in the Nicely Collection 

The installation of the “Exuberant Spirit” exhibition 

Resources to develop educational programming opportunities such as artist workshops, panel discussions, gallery tours and an upcoming student art camp.  

The grant also funds deeper research into the art and artists included in the collection, which has led to opportunities to collect oral histories, produce academic journal articles and present at the American Association of Museums annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.  

The Sammie L. Nicely Collection can be viewed on the Museum’s collections portal, which received a TAM Award of Excellence for Digital Media in 2022.  

The purpose of the TAM Awards of Excellence program is to recognize, encourage and promote excellence within the activities of the Tennessee museum community.  

The Reece Museum is a unit of the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, housed in the ETSU Department of Appalachian Studies. The Reece Museum is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Follow the Reece Museum on social media for more content and digital programming. For more information, visit etsu.edu/reece or call (423) 439-4392.  

East Tennessee State University was founded in 1911 with a singular mission: to improve the quality of life for people in the region and beyond. Through its world-class health sciences programs and interprofessional approach to health care education, ETSU is a highly respected leader in rural health research and practices. The university also boasts nationally ranked programs in the arts, technology, computing, and media studies. ETSU serves approximately 14,000 students each year and is ranked among the top 10 percent of colleges in the nation for students graduating with the least amount of debt.