Larry Francis Lebby, (September 8, 1950 - July 21, 2019) a native South Carolinian, was a painter and artist working in Columbia, South Carolina. He was one of the Black students to integrate Airport High School, and later attended Allen University and the University of South Carolina, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1976.
Lebby was known for his portraiture: a number of his portraits of famous legislators, judges, educators and activists hang in the South Carolina State House and other public spaces:
Modjeska Monteith Simkins
Benjamin Mayes
Samuel Lee Jones and Robert B. Elliott - portraits were unveiled in a ceremony on March 18, 1998. Clementa C. Pinckney, South Carolina Senator Matthew J. Perry, Judge, US District Court Ernest A. Finney Jr., South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Carter, US President
The South Carolina Legislature noted the 'local, national and international' recognition' that Lebby's work had received with a Concurrent Resolution in 1987.
Lebby was commissioned to create the portrait of Senator Pinckney after the murder of Pinckney and eight others in the Charleston church shooting in 2015. The portrait was unveiled in May of 2016, and hangs in the South Carolina Senate chambers. Speakers at the unveiling included Senator Gerald Malloy, Representative Joseph Neal, Senator Hugh Leatherman, Senator John W. Matthews Jr., the widow, Mrs. Jennifer Pinckney, and the artist Larry Lebby himself.
Lebby died in 2019.
External links
Senator Pinckney Portrait Unveiling at the South Carolina State House - South Carolina Educational Television, May 26, 2016
Larry Francis Lebby Oral History interview - University of South Carolina, June 8, 2016