How an artist helped shape Hilton Head

Walter Greer left us in such dramatic fashion — passing away at 96 just as we were all running to escape Hurricane Matthew — that his memorial service Wednesday at St. Luke’s Church brought a needed sense of peace.

It washed over us in the voice of soloist Jennie Brown of St. Helena Island. She and pianist Duchess Raehn could have ripped the roof off. But they kept it in first gear for a gentle version of “Oh, How He Loves You and Me” that Brown sang recently to cheer up Margaret Greer, the love of Walter’s life.

People still a little shellshocked from the hurricane needed that peace. It was sort of like Walter’s artwork. His large oil paintings had names like “Pond with Snowy Egrets,” “Preening Egret,” “Summer Snow,” “October Sea” and “Offshore Showers.”

He saw beauty on Hilton Head Island on his first visit in 1959. A year later, he lived here. He was an artist trained in Atlanta and New York starting a daring new career in a place with no galleries, no arts associations, no bed-tax grants, no arts center, no art colony, and precious few patrons.

But he had a studio in his home. He had paint and canvas. And he saw beauty.

Also, he had Margaret. Together, for almost 60 years, they became ambassadors for beauty in the Lowcountry, he with paint and she with words.

Built his own

Aldwyth, the Hilton Head artist of singular name who has become an overnight sensation in her seventh decade, reminded us at the service of Walter and Margaret’s creative and inviting home, and their beach parties suitable for painting. And their famous pool parties, which she said were never a subject for painting.

Walter was described by eulogists including Robert and Robb Rankin as kind, sweet, friendly, winsome, inclusive, accessible, compassionate, clever, well-read, an encourager, a great conversationalist, determined, a little stubborn, a little vain and certainly hard of hearing.

He built his own arts community, and in doing so helped shape Hilton Head.

David Pearson, and early island neighbor, read a letter to Greer from the late Porter Thompson. It came after one of Greer’s show openings, and expressed awe in someone willing to spill his soul and see if anyone likes it, much less buys it, and then has the guts to do it again and again, always starting from scratch.

Like Thompson, Walter helped give the island a sense of style and frivolity, always with splashes of grandeur.

Walter’s works hung at the William Hilton Inn before there were galleries. And he invited other artists and art historians to come and show their work and speak to groups. Over time, there were enough talented, full-time artists to form the weekly Round Table discussions at the Red Piano Art Gallery.

Dignity

The Rev. Greg Kronz said Walter was a captain in the U.S. Army, and he was — during the Battle of the Bulge, after graduating in The Citadel class of 1942 in his native state. He said Walter was a captain in industry, and he was doing well in his family’s textile business when he chucked it almost literally mid-meeting to follow his passion.

And Kronz said Walter was “a leader of this island, but he was a servant leader.” He was not overbearing, cracking a whip, like so many do. He was smiling and producing, all with the deft hand of Margaret, who our arts columnist Nancy Wellard called his “nudger.”

Greer immediately saw beauty in the sturdy face of John Holmes, a native of his new island home. He painted a portrait of Holmes, but told me he learned so much more in the process than the nuances of a face etched by hard work and stiff sea winds. The old captain told me he had come face-to-face with dignity.

Greer’s painting of Holmes, and of the Adventure, the ship that brought Capt. William Hilton this way in 1663, hang at the Coastal Discovery Museum. And a painting of the dunes that he dedicated to Packet co-founder Jonathan Daniels hangs in the Carolina Room at the Hilton Head public library. And his name lives in the Walter Greer Gallery at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina.

In 2003, Walter reached into his sketch book from the 1960s and painted about half a dozen oils of Hilton Head when it was a Gullah island, with “Brown’s Grocery” and a simply beautiful “April Sunday.”

Before we adjourned for an ice cream social, Walter’s favorite, Kronz said Walter and Margaret Greer have done us all a service.

This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 4:07 PM with the headline "How an artist helped shape Hilton Head."