African American Art Exhibit Founder Honored By Morris County

MORRISTOWN, NJ — Viki Craig, co-founder of Art in the Atrium (ATA), was honored with a plaque unveiled in Morristown by members of the Morris County Board of County Commissioners.

The event took place at the Morris County Administration and Records Building in Morristown, where ATA was founded 30 years ago.

Charles Craig and Lauren LeBeaux Craig, Viki Craig's husband and daughter, hosted the ceremony alongside Morris Arts Director of Galleries Lynn Seibert and Morris County Commissioner Deputy Director John Krickus next to the newly installed plaque on the 5th floor of the Atrium Gallery.

“It’s been three years since we lost Viki Craig and two years since we first planned a dedication here to this wonderful, brilliant and visionary woman, and I want to say thank you to Charles and Lauren for continuing her legacy. … It is so fitting that we are going to have Viki Craig’s plaque here, overlooking the atrium where she founded Art in the Atrium,” said Krickus.

Krickus also noted that Morris County has only two other plaques of honor on the 5th floor of the atrium: one for Frederick W. Knox, Jr., a Freeholder from 1978 to 1988, and the other for Ilene St. John, Clerk of the Board from 1991 to 2008.

Following Craig's death in Dec. 2018, her work was carried on by her family. ATA's annual exhibition, the state's largest of its kind, has been a successful showcase of art by both emerging and established artists.

“I am just so proud to represent my parents who had the vision and tenacity to keep this going for all these years. And I am excited that my mom has her plaque, and I’m trying not to get emotional too early. It’s a culmination of just so much,” LeBeaux Craig said..

The unveiling of the plaque coincided with Juneteenth celebrations, which commemorated the date June 19, 1865, two months after the Civil War ended, when Union General Gordon Granger delivered the news to enslaved communities in Texas that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier.

The nonprofit volunteer art organization ATA took its name from the county's five-story building atrium, where the Craig Family launched their nonprofit volunteer art organization in Morristown with the mission of educating and exhibiting African American fine art

This year, ATA's atrium exhibit is included in Morris Arts' new exhibit, REEMERGENCE AND RENEWAL, which opened last month and will be on display until Sept. 2.

The exhibit features 138 artworks by 46 artists who provide a sense of renewal with their vibrant imagery, vibrant colors, compelling designs and an underlying sense of humanity, Art in the Atrium said.

The Atrium Art Gallery is free and open to the public during business hours, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.