What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/928490
8 WHAT'S UP! JANUARY 21-27, 2018 Bell exhibit recalls one man and his community COVER STORY Legend, Legacy BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette J ohn Bell Jr. wouldn't be entirely happy about the exhibit of his work currently open at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum as part of the city's bicentennial celebration. The museum director knows it, even though he never met Bell. "From everything I've heard, he would have been very unhappy with anybody even considering viewing him through the lens of his disability," says Louis Meluso, whose first task after he came to FSRAM Nov. 1 was gathering the art for the Bell exhibit. "But he overcame so much." Bell's daughter is equally sure of her father's reaction. "He was very interested in his artwork standing on its own," says Lisa Murphy of Conway. "He didn't want people to know he had a disability at all, because he didn't want his artwork to be purchased for that reason." But Bell's story is unique and can't be properly told without including the fact that he was born in 1937 with cerebral palsy; his wife, Maxine, had polio; and they raised daughter Lisa from their wheelchairs. In spite of the challenges, Bell earned a regional, if not national, reputation for paintings that captured both the heritage of the state he loved and its magic. "I can still remember chugging T-models, the ice man, anxiety about the war, radio plays, back yard clothes lines with sheets flowing in the breeze, and those small things that form the foundation for your life," Bell wrote before his death in November 2013 at the age of 76. "My parents came from coal miners and farmers in eastern Oklahoma, but moved to Fort Smith to start a new life. I was born here along with my two sisters and a brother. All of our memories and influences are of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, which is reflected in my art." Courtesy Image Bell's daughter Lisa Murphy says her father loved streetcars and often captured them in his paintings, like this one of Spring Street in Eureka Springs. He also had an extensive model railroad collection. File Photo Fort Smith artist John Bell Jr. always preferred his art remain separated from his disability, although he was confined to a wheelchair.