Celebrated Columbia artist Laura Spong dies at 92

An active artist until the end, Laura Spong finished her final paintings just days before she died.

Spong, a Columbia treasure and one of South Carolina’s best known and respected artists, died Monday at age 92.

She was a prolific and decorated painter whose abstract expressionist works earned her a reputation as one of South Carolina’s best contemporary artists.

“It’s really what she lived for, painting,” said Wim Roefs, a longtime friend and owner of Columbia’s if ART Gallery, where he was Spong’s art dealer. “Laura was really one of the greats, as an artist and as a human being. Laura would just never disappoint in whichever way you think about it, with her work, with her personality, with her integrity as a human being.”

Friends and fellow artists described Spong as someone consistently committed to her craft — who painted because she loved painting — who worked joyfully and inspired countless other artists.

“She didn’t make paintings; she painted,” said Eileen Blyth, a painter, sculptor and friend of Spong for more than 25 years. Not only was Spong a role model to her, Blyth said, but Spong encouraged her to step up as a role model, too.

Blyth and Spong practiced their art together at Vista Studios in downtown Columbia.

While Spong was one of the earliest artists to work at Vista Studios, she did not follow her cohort to the newly opened Stormwater Studios earlier this year. She did, though, play an active role in planning the new artists’ village.

Spong painted for more than six decades, including into her 90s.

Her pieces have been purchased by the S.C. State Museum and the S.C. State Art Collection and are included in numerous public and private collections. Several Spong paintings were featured in the Lifetime network’s “Drop Dead Diva” television series several years ago.

In 2017, Spong was given the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Awards for the Arts Lifetime Achievement honor by the S.C. Arts Commission.

When she learned of her award, Roefs said, “She looked at me and said, ‘I thought that was just for really important people.’ I said, ‘Laura, you’re kind of an important artist here.’”

Born in 1926 in Nashville, Spong moved to Columbia with her husband in 1948. She had taken several art classes at Vanderbilt University and began painting seriously in the 1950s, periodically taking art classes at the Columbia Museum of Art.

Spong painted hundreds of pieces over the decades and participated in a number of group exhibitions with other artists.

But it wasn’t until her 80th birthday that Spong truly found her own spotlight. Her birthday exhibition was wildly successful, a moment when people took notice of Spong’s work like never before. In that show, Spong sold more art than she had in any year previously, Roefs said.

“What was striking is that it took her a long time to sort of figure out that she was actually a really good artist,” Roefs said. “She plugged away at it, and she worked at it, but for the longest time, she would not even call herself an artist. She would just call herself a painter. ... She combined real determination with commitment and great modesty, and there was nothing boastful about anything she did or how she looked at her work.”

The last dozen years of her life were among her most successful as an artist.

She painted daily, earnestly, considered it her passion and her job. Spong was “compelled” to paint, Roefs said.

Her Vista Studio neighbors remember Spong’s diligence — she’d be at work in her studio most every day when she was healthy enough to do so — and the opera and country music she would play while she painted.

“She was an example of the steadfastness, the discipline — but not joylessness, because there was so much joy in what she did,” said David Yaghjian, who worked on the opposite side of a wall from Spong for 13 years.

Spong will live on in her paintings, her friends say.

“For those of us who knew her, she’ll live on regardless. But for those who didn’t know her, her spirit, I think, is captured in her work,” Yaghjian said. “You can feel her in it. You can feel the emotion in it and feel the discretion in it and feel the choices she’s making. You feel moved by the color, by the instinct. You’re moved by the depth.

“With paintings, what you don’t need to do is understand verbally what’s going on. It’s a meditation, to sit in front of a painting and let it affect you. And her paintings are wonderful for that.”

Spong is survived by her six children and their families.

The artists of Stormwater Studios, formerly of Vista Studios, plan to display Spong’s artwork in place of their own for a time.

This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 10:20 AM.