Join us for a conversation with collector and costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee at 6:30 p.m., in conjunction with a reception including light hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar. Attendance is free for members, $5 for students and faculty with ID, and $10 for nonmembers.
About Myrna Colley-Lee
Myrna Colley-Lee, collector of the works featured in Reflections: African American Life from the Myrna Colley-Lee Collection, is an arts patron, advocate, and is herself an artist.
A world traveler since the age of 17, Colley-Lee collects art wherever she goes, acquiring pieces that have a personal impact on her— whether from artisans in small villages, through personal connections to artists, or from more traditional venues. In the late 1960s, she was at the forefront of the Black Theater Movement as a costume designer. Since then, she has designed more than 70 shows and is still actively working for regional theatres.
The renderings, collages, and costumes created by Colley-Lee have been featured in exhibitions across the country, including at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum’s Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts; the Mississippi Museum of Art; and an archive and permanent display at Mississippi State University.
Colley-Lee champions the arts through her many roles of service. In 2006, she established SonEdna, a non-profit organization that celebrates and promotes literary arts and writers of all genres and backgrounds. She is also immediate past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Arts Commission; serves on the Acquisitions Committee of the Mississippi Museum of Art; and is on the Advisory Boards of both the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Department of Art and Architecture at Mississippi State University.
Colley-Lee was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Creative Arts from Mississippi State University, as well as numerous other awards, including the Wynona Lee Fletcher Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Designer from the Black Theatre Network; Honored Artist from the National Museum of Women in the Arts; and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.