Charles Harbison
Hickory Museum of Art reopens with a season of exhibitions
that honor the past while looking to the future.
Follow The Golden Thread through your new museum.
September 6, 2026 - January 31, 2027
Whitener, Shuford, Coe, engageHMA,
and 3rd Floor Galleries
Reopening Preview Party with
Special Guest Charles Harbison
Saturday, September 5 | 7 PM
Marking its grand return after a year-long transformation, Hickory Museum of Art (HMA) is making a stylish grand return. HMA has partnered with acclaimed fashion designer Charles Harbison to “dress the museum” for a spectacular inaugural exhibition. For the first time in HMA’s 80-year history, a single guest artist will exhibit on all three floors. Harbison’s showcase, The Women, anchors HMA’s reopening theme, The Golden Thread—a celebration that honors our rich history while looking ahead to the future.
At the heart of the exhibition are four custom silhouettes created by Harbison, each inspired by specific paintings he selected from HMA’s permanent collection. These new works will sit alongside defining pieces from the Harbison Studio Archives and some of the designer’s most famous red-carpet moments—including Met Gala looks for Simone Biles, Mindy Kaling, Audra McDonald and John Imah. All looks will be paired with paintings and sculpture from the museum’s collection including works by Roy Lichtenstein, Juan Logan, Robert Motherwell, Selma Burke, and Alexander Calder.
Harbison’s work will be paired with paintings and sculpture from HMA’s Collection. Anya Fisher [1905-1992], Female, gouache on paper, From the Collection of Barry and Allen Huffman, Gift, 2015.23.
Simone Biles at the Met Gala on May 5, 2025.
Courtesy of Harbison Studio
About the Artist
Based in Los Angeles, Charles Harbison is the creative force behind harbison.studio, a modern luxury design house built on an ethos of optimistic luxury, gender fluidity, cultural storytelling, and sustainable practice.
Before launching his eponymous brand in 2013, Harbison forged a prominent career in New York City, working as a textile and apparel designer for legacy houses including Michael Kors Collection, Luca Luca, and Billy Reid. His initial collections earned rapid critical acclaim, championed by Vogue, Elle, and The New York Times, leading to high-profile moments dressing cultural icons such as Beyoncé, Michelle Obama, and Ava DuVernay. Harbison has design-directed contemporary brands like Cult Gaia and Ungaro, collaborated with Banana Republic, and led design conversations at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Barnes Foundation.
Harbison was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, where he developed an early passion for fashion watching the transformative power of clothing in his working-class mother's life. He went on to study Fine Arts, Painting, and Fiber Arts & Textile Science at North Carolina State University’s College of Design. Following graduation, he spent a year abroad studying Central Asian before completing postgraduate fashion studies at Parsons School of Design in New York City. This major exhibition at HMA marks a deeply personal homecoming project for the designer.
Exhibition Sponsors
TSH Charitable Trust
Arts Culture Catawba
Beaver Family Foundation
Corning Foundation
Patterson Pope
Hickory Community Relations Council
This project was supported by a grant from Arts Culture Catawba
Francis Simeni: MANIFEST
Hickory Museum of Art reopens with a season of exhibitions
that honor the past while looking to the future.
Follow The Golden Thread through your new museum.
September 6, 2026 - January 31, 2027
1st Floor localHMA Gallery
Opening Reception Honoring Exhibitions by
Francis Simeni, Jean Cauthen, and Rosa & Winton Eugene
Saturday, October 10 | 5 - 7 PM
Francis Simeni, Bearer of Light, mixed media on collaged canvas
Francis Simeni is a painter living in Hickory, North Carolina. Born in Nigeria, the son of a diplomat, Francis split his childhood between Poland and Nigeria before settling in New York City for 36 years, and now Hickory. It is from this perspective that he creates compositions with intense personal narratives. His graphic compositions are infused with emotion from an earthy warm palette and grainy wood surface to a vibrant and full palette on torn up collaged pieces of paper. Using these natural and man-made surfaces as part of composition grounds each piece as it creates a narrative that focuses on a limited color palette sometimes, and a broader, more colorful palette at other times. He explores personal themes and how each person’s story relates to the broader human experience.
Jean Cauthen
Hickory Museum of Art reopens with a season of exhibitions
that honor the past while looking to the future.
Follow The Golden Thread through your new museum.
September 6, 2026 - January 31, 2027
1st Floor The Carolina Gallery
Opening Reception Honoring Exhibitions by
Jean Cauthen, Francis Simeni, and Rosa & Winton Eugene
Saturday, October 10 | 5 - 7 PM
Jean Cauthen, Tend
Jean Cauthen grew up in Naples, Italy, New Orleans and the Carolinas. She
completed her education with an MFA in Painting and Drawing at James Madison University in Virginia.
Much of her professional life was spent as head of the Art Department at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute and as Professor of Art History (UNC-C).
Her art career has led her to Moscow, Russia as a set designer and she regularly returns to Italy, France and Ireland for month long artist residencies. When not working plein-air, she creates large scale paintings in her studio located in Dilworth Artisan Station in Charlotte, NC.
Rosa & Winton Eugene
Hickory Museum of Art reopens with a season of exhibitions
that honor the past while looking to the future.
Follow The Golden Thread through your new museum.
September 6, 2026 - January 31, 2027
2nd Floor Generations Gallery
Opening Reception Honoring Exhibitions by
Rosa & Winton Eugene, Francis Simeni, and Jean Cauthen
Saturday, October 10 | 5 - 7 PM
Rosa & Winton Eugene, Exercise in Balance/Equal, 2005, coiled stoneware vessel, low relief, carved, etched, and stained mock mosaic with tile grout and soft sculptured silk figures
Self-taught artists Rosa and Winton Eugene operate out of Cowpens, South Carolina, collaborating on stoneware deeply rooted in Southern folk traditions. Winton throws the forms on a wheel and incises them with detailed scenes, while Rosa mixes the glazes, applies them with a 2-inch brush, and creates larger decorative pieces through coiling and hand building. Before the clay is completely dry (at the leather-hard stage), Winton draws designs in pencil and uses tools to carve or excise clay. This creates intricate low-relief art depicting daily Southern life, family, and heritage.