Greenville Airport Mural

In 1989, the Greenville-Spartanburg(SC) Airport mural was unveiled. At that time it was the longest airport mural in the world...160' x 12'!! The theme is based on travel in the USA. Scenes from different states and regions intertwine with abstract shapes and colors to form an amazingly bold explosion of color and design. The mural, painted by Carl Tait, was a gift to the people of the Greenville-Spartanburg area from Roger Milliken. The mural covers the entire back wall of the airport restaurant. Carl was born in Old Town, Maine and graduated from the Manchester Institue of Arts and Sciences. At the unveiling, Tait was introduced as "Artist Extraordinaire". *click on images to see a larger version.

Detail

This is one of Carl's paintings that shows his amazing use of detail and mastery of various textures...great composition here as the large, heavy looking urn is balanced by the asymmetrical foliage. Most of Carls works are acrylic or gouche on illustration board or heavy paper. His larger paintings and murals are usually canvas or panels of some sort.

Murals

Carl painted a number of murals during his career. Many of them were for Milliken. The one shown here appears to be 6 or 7 feet tall and over 40 or 50 feet long...I can't see all of it in the photo. One of Carl's greatest Murals is in the Greenville, SC airport. I'll try to post some images of that one in a later post.

Illustration for a Christmas card. Carl did many, many Christmas card illustrations for many, many years. This is an outstanding example. Acrylic, 18X22

This painting shows Carl's adeptness at graphic design, vivid color and a modern art approach. Acrylic, 14X18

Over the next few months, I want to introduce a remarkable artist that I have come in contact with. I met Carl approximately a year and a half ago and was completely blown away by his work. Incredible versatility, amazing drawing ability, awesome detail. Many of these were illustrations for various companies in the 40's, 50's, 60's and beyond. Carl is in his early 90's and until recently still worked regularly in his studio near LaGrange GA. Carl also produced many large scale murals including one at the Greenville, SC airport. I'll show some of the mural work in a later post. The first image shown here is one of Carl's highly detailed images. This acrylic painting is approx 14X18".