A Permanent Home for a Memphis Master

The work of nationally celebrated painter Carroll Cloar now has a permanent home in the city he called home, thanks to a gift from Boyle Investment Company. In honor of the 100-year anniversary of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Boyle made a contribution, which the museum in turn used to establish a new gallery for Cloar’s work. Today, that gallery is the largest collection of Cloar’s work in the world.

It all began in 2013, when Boyle celebrated our 80^th anniversary by serving as the title sponsor of a major Cloar exhibition at the Brooks, Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South. This fall, Boyle and Morgan family members enjoyed the grand opening celebration of the new Cloar Gallery with curator Stanton Thomas, who oversaw the creation of this beautiful setting for the Brooks’ extensive Cloar collection. Surrounded by rare Southern furniture – including a sugar desk and sideboard sugar chest – numerous Cloar paintings, lithographs, and drawings are on display. Visitors to the beautiful space will find several of Cloar’s most representative and noteworthy works, including the well-known Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog.