In recognition of his significant role in the growth and development of the arts in South Carolina and beyond, the South Carolina Arts Alliance will present Dr. Leo Twiggs with the Scottie Award this evening during the Statewide Arts Conference.

The presentation will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10, at the Newberry Opera House. The night will begin with a gala buffet reception at 6:15.

The arts conference, held every 10 years, invites arts agencies in the state to meet and discuss the role of the arts in South Carolina.

Twiggs' presentation marks only the fourth time the Scottie Award has been presented. Past recipients include Scott Sanders Shanklin-Peterson in 1994, Arthur Raymond Doughty in 1998 and Dr. Mac Arthur Goodwin in 2003. Goodwin will be the keynote speaker at this year's presentation.

A native of St. Stephen, Twiggs received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Claflin University and later studied at the Arts Institute of Chicago. He earned a masters degree from New York University, where he studied under famed black painter and muralist Hale Woodruff. Twiggs was the first black individual to receive a doctorate in art education from the University of Georgia.

At South Carolina State University, together with then-president Dr. M. Maceo Nance, Twiggs developed the Stanback Museum and established the university's first art department. Although only a junior faculty member at the time, Twiggs said Nance trusted him to work with architects in designing the museum.

The Stanback Museum has one of the largest exhibits spaces among Historically Black Colleges and Universities and is the only museum connected to a scie.jpgic facility.

In 1988, Ebony magazine featured a three-page color spread highlighting the museum titled "South Carolina State's Hidden Treasure." Twiggs was director of the museum and chair of the department until he retired in 1998.

Twiggs also contributed to the redesign of Claflin University's Lee Library into the current Arthur Rose Museum. He has received international recognition and awards for his batik works. After years of perfecting his technique, several of Twiggs' paintings have been selected to hang in American embassies in Rome, Togoland, Decca and Sierra Leone, among other places. Twiggs has had more than 65 one-man shows, and his work can be seen in major South Carolina museums, at Cornell University in New York and across the United States.

"It's amazing that I'll open up a book or a magazine and see my work exhibited somewhere," Twiggs said. "There's no way to tell when your art is purchased, so it's always surprising to see where my pieces are."

Twiggs was the first visual artist to receive the Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award for outstanding contributions to the arts in South Carolina, and he received the National Art Education Association Southeastern Regional Award in 1981. In 1994, he was selected to appear in the WIS-TV BellSouth Calendar, and he was inducted into the S.C. Black Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame in 2003.

In 2001, he was selected to design an ornament for the White House Christmas tree. The ornament was a sculptural replica of the house where Benjamin Mays, spiritual mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King, was born.

Twiggs received the Medal of Honor in the Arts from Winthrop University in 2004, and in 2007, the Governors School Foundation gave him its Leadership Award in recognition for his services as vice chair and building committee member of that institution.

The Scottie Award is particularly special to Twiggs, who said Scott Sanders Shanklin-Peterson, for whom the award is named, served on the Southern Arts Federation Board with Twiggs in the 1980s.

"Our careers have crossed on many levels," Twiggs said. "I've seen her rise to great levels in her career."

Twiggs is a member of the South Carolina Arts Alliance Board of Directors, the Arts in Basic Steering Committee and chair of the S.C. Hall of Fame board. His is currently a distinguished artist in residence at Claflin University and professor emeritus and SCSU. He is married to the former Rosa Johnson of Sumter, and they have three sons.

T&D Features Writer Candace Newson can be reached by e-mail at cnewson@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5540. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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