The Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new exhibition: “Wings of Adventure: Smith Reynolds and the Flight of 898 Whiskey,” which examines the Golden Age of aviation.
Reynolda House was built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. In 1967, under the leadership of Barbara Babcock Millhouse, granddaughter of Katharine and R.J. Reynolds, Reynolda House opened as an art museum. The museum’s collection of American art includes masterpieces from three centuries.
The museum’s fall exhibition, “Wings of Adventure: Smith Reynolds and the Flight of 898 Whiskey,” grew out of a solo flight 20-year-old Smith Reynolds, R.J. Reynolds’ youngest son, took in 1931 and 1932 from London to Hong Kong in a Savoia Marchetti, a single engine Italian-designed amphibious biplane. The exhibition highlights his journey through a wall map detailing his trip, as well as an actual 1930 Savoia Marchetti S-56.
In addition, the exhibition contains art and decorative accessories that illustrate the excitement and influence aviation had on popular culture and arts at that time.
Related programs further explore the impact of aviation on the national imagination and on the cultural landscape from film to literature to art. The written chronicle Smith Reynolds kept during his journey will be reissued and available for purchase.
The exhibit, which opened earlier this month, will run through Dec. 30.
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