Launched in 2017 by the Knoxville History Project, Downtown Art Wraps is an art and history initiative that aims to inspire an appreciation of the city’s rich artistic heritage. Eight years later, this ever-changing public art exhibition now features 40 “wrapped” traffic signal boxes throughout the downtown area that are viewed by thousands of people daily.
High quality scans of original artworks have been selected with the help of the city’s leading art institutions, including Knoxville Museum of Art, East Tennessee History Center, McClung Historical Collection, Beck Cultural Exchange Center, and others. While you may find some of the artworks familiar, others have rarely been shown in public.
Here's a look at a few recent installations and others that have graced our streets for a few years now:
"Untitled (Mother & Child)" by Catherine Wiley is at Gay Street and Union Avenue. Wiley is recognized as one of Knoxville’s most influential artists of the early 20th century. She first attended the University of Tennessee and later taught there. Following a move to New York in 1903, she was active with the Art Students League where she studied under American Impressionist Frank DuMond, followed by a brief spell at the New York School of Art with William Merritt Chase. Back in Knoxville, she became a leading member of the Nicholson Art League (1906-1923), helping to organize major art exhibits. This undated impressionist painting, from the McClung Historical Collection, was funded by KHP donors on National Giving Day 2025.
In Krutch Park Extension, on Gay Street, “Chimney Tops” (1920s) by Charles Krutch was selected from KMA’s signature exhibition: “Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee,” and funded by a State of Tennessee Arts Commission grant. Known for his atmospheric watercolors and oil paintings, particularly portraying the Smoky Mountains, Krutch painted with both brushes and his fingers to capture what has been described as the “changing ‘moods’ of the mountains.” Krutch’s pre-impressionist style inspired the nickname, the “Corot of the South.”
(By the way, Krutch Park is named for the artist’s nephew, Charles Edward Krutch, a Tennessee Valley Authority photographer who left funds to the city for a downtown park that was completed in 1985.)
One of the most distinctive art wraps on Gay Street is “Sports Final (Newsboy)” (1949)by C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing, at Main Street, sponsored by LHP Capital. Ewing started the University of Tennessee's visual arts program in the late 1940s and in 1963, along with other local artists known as the Knoxville 7, staged a groundbreaking exhibition at UT’s McClung Museum. Around the same time, he also formed the Knoxville Watercolor Society to promote the medium as a “significant art form” and continued to expand UT's visual arts program. Ewing is well represented in the permanent collection of KMA; another art wrap by him, “Fahrenheit” (1959) can be seen on Western Avenue near the KMA.
Fellow Knoxville 7 artist Carl Sublett worked as an engineering draftsman and a newspaper artist in Kentucky before moving to Knoxville in the 1950s where he joined Buck Ewing as a professor. Both were among the first artists in East Tennessee to experiment with Abstract Expressionism. Sublett is represented on three traffic boxes around downtown, including the busy intersection at Broadway, Henley, and Western Avenue opposite the L&N STEM Academy where you can find “Composition, Pop Goes My Easel” (1963). This painting is also from the KMA, and is sponsored by The Grandiflora.
Two works by Ted Burnett: “The Rabbi Saw Red” and “King David” (both 1960s)are at Locust and Walnut Streets, respectively. These rarely seen works are from the East Tennessee Historical Society and sponsored by the Knoxville Jewish Community Family of Funds. Burnett began his career making promotional displays at the Tennessee Theatre shortly after it opened in 1928. He held his first one-man show at UT’s Audigier Art Gallery at Hoskins Library in the late 1940s and later opened his own school of art on Fifth Avenue. Burnett was known to incorporate Jewish themes into his work, often in an “Eastern European style.” His art wrap locations are relevant since the Jewish Community Center used to be nearby on West Vine Avenue before it moved to Deane Hill in Bearden in the 1960s.
Internationally acclaimed modern artist Beauford Delaney is represented by “Yaddo” (1950) on East Hill Avenue and “Untitled” (1969) on Henley Street. Along with his younger artist brother, Joe, Beauford grew up on Knoxville’s East Vine Street. As a teenager, he impressed Lloyd Branson, Knoxville’s most successful artist of the time, who gave him lessons in return for mixing paints and helping out in Branson’s Gay Street studio. Working for Branson helped pay for Beauford’s way to Boston, where he studied art before settling in New York by 1929. In 1953, Beauford moved to Paris and began to explore Abstract Expressionism. His exuberant oils with vibrant colors have earned him a reputation as one of America’s greatest modern painters. Today, the largest and most comprehensive public collection of Beauford Delaney’s work is housed at KMA.
You can view all Downtown Art Wraps and a map showing all locations, plus learn how to become a sponsor at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org/downtown-art-wraps/
ABOUT KHP
The nonprofit Knoxville History Project tells the city’s stories, focusing on those that have not been previously told and those that connect the city to the world. Donations to support the work of the Knoxville History Project, an educational nonprofit, are always welcomed and appreciated. Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org