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Famed writer Flannery O’Connor has gained a new degree of complexity after dozens of paintings and other illustrations attributed to her were discovered in 2023. In celebration of what would have been her hundredth birthday, O’Connor’s alma mater Georgia College and State University (GCSU) in her hometown of Milledgeville is showing 70 of her recovered artworks, rounding out an already influential literary legacy.

In 2020, conversations about O’Connor’s legacy arose with regards to her private versus public attitudes toward Black people and the Civil Rights movement as well as her flippant use of the N-word in letters. Now, two recovered portrait paintings featuring a Black woman and a young Black girl as subjects add another layer to the conversation that has yet to be interpreted.

On March 25, the collection of 70 artworks was reunited and displayed in full for the first time at GSCU before it moved to the Andalusia Interpretive Center, which is operated by the university. The exhibition, titled “Hidden Treasures” and on view through early 2026, consists of O’Connor’s artwork and other personal objects and artifacts that haven’t been shown to the public before.

Read more in the article by Rhea Nayyar through our link in bio.
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