Southeast," Harris said. "Many became educators on both
the primary and secondary levels, while others were
instrumental in starting the Birmingham, Montgomery,
Mobile and Jackson, Mississippi, museums."
Fitzpatrick, who helped found the Montgomery
Museum of Fine Arts and the Alabama Art League, was,
of course, among the most notable of the group. Another
standout colonist was Frank Applebee, who founded the
art department at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now
Auburn University), and acquired the pieces that became
the core collection of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of
Fine Art at Auburn.
True love, as well as
friendship, blossomed at
the colony. Two prominent
portrait painters, Karl
Wolfe and Mildred
Nungester, met at the DAC
and later married.
A rotating exhibit of
many of the original pieces
created by the artists and
other memorabilia from
those years can be seen
at the Dixie Art Colony
Museum and Gallery in
downtown Wetumpka.
Visitors can also step back in time by touring the old
colony site at Nobles Ferry (now owned by Chrys and
Robert Bowden) and see where the artists wielded
their paintbrushes.
Kracke and Holland agree that the colony was almost
like another world.
"Nothing was like the Dixie and nothing will ever be
like the Dixie," Kracke said. "It's a time long gone. It was
an experience like no other at the time, and I will never
have an experience like it again."
For more information about the DAC Foundation and its
programs, visit dixieartcolony.org/.
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| 2019 Vol: 2
