The Eclectic World of Doug Hawkins” art exhibit opens today at the Johnson Center for the Arts in downtown Troy. The exhibition features styles of art from a broad and diverse range of sources, from Picasso, Dali and Chagall to Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Woodie Long … and “Dougie.”

“When we were trying to decided on a name for the Doug Hawkins exhibit, we realized that ‘eclectic’ was the one word that describes Doug’s art and Doug himself,” said Vicki Pritchett, Johnson Center for the Arts director. “Doug was a person who derived ideas, style and tastes from a broad and diverse range of sources. Doug was eclectic.”

“The Eclectic World of Doug Hawkins” fills the upper gallery of the Johnson Center and features paintings from his “masters” art collection in the Gibson Family Gallery and the John and Eloise Kirk Gallery. Paintings from Hawkins’ folk art collection and his own artwork fill the Tile Gallery.

All artwork is on loan from the Doug Hawkins family.

Hawkins, who died in September 2015, practiced veterinary medicine in Troy for 52 years. His clinic doubled as an art gallery that featured Hawkins’ favorite folk artists. The hundreds and hundreds of people who took their animals to his clinic were “exposed” to the arts “whether they want to be or not,” Hawkins would laugh and say.
“Doug was a lover of the arts,” Pritchett said. “He knew art and he appreciated art and the artists. Doug was first a lover of the arts. Then he became a collector of the arts and then an artist himself.”

Pritchett said Hawkins was coming into his own as an artist when he died.
“He was having so much fun painting and showing his work,” she said. “He loved talking about art, about artist and about his own art.” Pritchett said Hawkins had the same appreciation for the artwork of folk artist Mose T. that he had for master artist Rembrandt.

“Doug just loved art,” she said. “His own artwork was greatly influenced by folk artists, Jean Lake, Woodie and Jimmie Lee Sudduth. He and folk artist Charlie Lucas became friends and Doug appreciated his work and was also influenced by it.”

Pritchett said Doug Hawkins was a Renaissance man. “He could do it all,” she said. “He was a veterinarian. He was a collector of art and an artist. He was a writer. He was an educator. He was an influencer. He was a difference maker.

“Doug could converse with people from all walks of life. He could talk with the man on the streets as well as the most educated of people.”

Pritchett said those who view “The Eclectic World of Doug Hawkins” exhibit will get a sense of the man though his art. And, perhaps, it’s a work of his own that sums up his life and the way he lived it.

The “Dougie” painting is of a still life. The inscription reads: “Don’t be a still life.”

And Doug Hawkins never was.