The Gloria
by Madeline Carol

It was the age of great movie houses, and Charleston was not unlike any other city across America. Increasingly Hollywood brought to the

screen powerful stories, famous actors and actresses, and larger-than-life spectacles. Attendance boomed, and -- along with epic dramas -- Hollywood provided newsreels, cartoons, serials and short subjects. To accommodate the Crowds and to intensify the movie going experience, theaters became larger, grander, more ornate and opulent -- true palaces of pleasure that awed with their majesty and transported people away, however briefly, from the humdrum of ordinary life. But with the movement of people to the suburbs and with the advent of television, the great movie houses began to close and disappear.

So, with time, the double-feature Saturday afternoon shows and serials and the grand theaters became a memory only vivid in the minds and hearts of the patrons who had gone there. In Charleston one such great movie house survived, in spite of the adverse conditions that obliterated many others, such as the Majestic, the Victory, and the Palace. Opened in 1927, the Gloria, a grandiose theater at the corner of King and George Streets, was the largest and most elegant of them all. Ornately decorated with marble statues and paintings, it had a great dome complete with a blue sky and twinkling lights. Echoes of popcorn boxes and the shuffle of feet gave a distinctive background to the Gloria. The ushers with their flashlights were the only other distraction for the movie viewers. Here people spent their leisure time viewing the great films of the day and enjoying the company of their friends and loved ones. Now, Sottile Hall, owned by the College of Charleston, the Gloria remains a vivid memory for Charlestonians who remember the days when movies were movies.

Madeline Carol recreates the Gloria in all its splendor, paying close attention to the architectural details of the grand movie hall. You can feel the encompassing presence of the Gloria, the great blue dome filled with twinkling stars, and the many fancy curtains opening as the feature gets underway. Using apparitions of another time she carefully places these throughout the theater so that you can take your spot in the audience in your memory. Using the vantage point of the great balcony for the view, she takes you back to your moment in time and through the employment of colors and apparitions gives the painting enduring and living life and memory. Settle back as though you are in your seat at the Gloria and relive a time gone by in the spectacular painting, "The Gloria."

Madeline Carol, Capturing the Spirits
Art Gallery