Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 1, 1994                   TAG: 9411140021
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AN EXHIBIT JOHN WILL CREASY WOULD HAVE LIKED

The advertising man, tireless arts promoter and prolific part-time artist, who died July 3, produced hundreds of paintings in his 74 years.

Some 54 of them will be on display at the Art Museum of Western Virginia, beginning Saturday.

The exhibition kicks off with a black-tie gala fund-raiser Friday night. "It will be light, hopefully, and fun, and something that would have made him feel very very good," said a fellow supporter of the arts, Betty Carr Muse.

The $50-a-head event is intended to raise money for Mill Mountain Theatre - a love of Creasy's, who served on the theater's board for many years.

Attendees also may contribute money to a fund in Creasy's name for the art museum's educational program, said Mark Scala, the art museum's interim chief curator and director of administratIon.

A Creasy landscape painting will be auctioned off.

Organizers say the event should be viewed not as a memorial to Creasy - which would only have embarrassed him - but as a celebration.

Which might have embarrassed him anyway.

"I'm sure that he would have been pleased and embarrassed at the same time," Scala said of the attention.

Creasy was a popular local artist who ignored the art world's cutting edge and was happy to do his watercolor paintings of animals and landscapes. Much of his work was done for people he knew, Scala said. Some 40 percent was done on commission.

"I don't think he thought of his art as being for museums as much as for private homes and friends," Scala said.

People seldom appear in Creasy's paintings.

"I think he felt much more comfortable with landscapes," Scala said. Creasy did sometimes paint barnyard animals - and even portraits of people's pets.

"He was a good artist," Scala said. "He was very popular, and he was very sensitive to what people like."

Creasy's efforts on behalf of the arts in the Roanoke Valley were legendary. In addition to the board of Mill Mountain Theatre, Creasy served on the Roanoke Arts Commission, the City of Roanoke Architectural Review Board and the boards of Opera Roanoke and the Art Museum of Western Virginia, among others.

A native of Roanoke, he graduated from Jefferson High School in 1937 and Richmond Professional Institute - now Virginia Commonwealth University - in 1942.

This is at least the second time the museum has held an exhibit of Creasy's art, Scala said.

The Creasy exhibit on the second floor of the art museum opens to the public Saturday and runs through Nov. 19. Reservations for the gala may be made at 342-5740 until noon Wednesday.