With the South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition set to open in Charleston in December of 1901, the appointed chairman of the fine arts department, James Townsend, made a call in October of that same year for works of art to be entered in the running for an exhibition at the Art Palace on the exposition grounds that would open in January of 1902. Townsend who had been editor for American Art News, as well as an art critic at the New York Times, New York Herald and New York News, envisioned an exhibit that would surpass the one most recently held at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. (Falk, Who Was Who In American Art). In the Charleston News and Courier, he defined three groups of art that would be accepted into consideration for the exhibit. The first group consisted of paintings and miniatures by American artists working in the colonial and revolutionary period and the fifty years following the Revolution (approximately 1730-1840). This was the area of the exhibit that most interested Townsend, because he felt the display of this art would set the exhibit at Charleston apart from every other art exhibit held at the major American expositions of the time. The second group consisted of paintings in oil, watercolor, pastel and other mediums by American artists from 1875 to the present. The third group consisted of sculpture by American artists. In order to be considered for exhibit the works had to be originals; copies would not be accepted.
There were to be two cities where art could be sent for entry into the exhibit: New York and Charleston. Boundaries were drawn to determine where the artists or owners of the art were to send their entries. Drawing a line from east to west at Philadelphia, those north of the line would send their entries to New York and those south of the line would send their entries to Charleston. In each city there were juries set up, made up of both artists and art patrons to determine which paintings would be exhibited at the Art Palace and later a separate jury would determine the medalists at the exposition. The Charleston jury was made up of three men: Professor Thomas della Torre, Dr. Rev. Robert Wilson and James Townsend.
Mr. Townsend was most interested in the Early American art that he hoped would be loaned for the exposition. He knew that the South was rich in its possession of works by such well known early American artists as John S. Copley, Thomas Sully, Gilbert Stuart and many others. He became discouraged at the lack of response he received from the South, particularly from the people of Charleston. He felt they should be eager to have their works displayed, if not for their own feeling of pride at seeing their painting displayed in public, then as a means for attracting more people to Charleston to see the works and therefore the city. After all, the purpose of the exposition as a whole was to attract outsiders to the city and therefore, hopefully, generate commerce in Charleston. The least its finest citizens could do for their city was to allow the works in their possession to be displayed. He reassured them time and time again in columns in both the News and Courier and the Evening Post that the Art Palace where the works would be displayed had been designed with the utmost care. The building was completely fireproof, most people could not say that of their own homes, and the paintings would be insured courtesy of the exposition company. Townsend, through the editor of the News and Courier, even appealed to their sense of Southern pride by stating that the people from the North had been very responsive to request for the loan of their paintings responsive Apparently, his appeal worked, at least to some degree, because in his next letter to the News and Courier Mr. Townsend states that " . . .it has brought me some most courteous and kindly responses. . .The extent and richness of these art treasures. . .surprises me" (News and Courier 8). In the end, however, only about 115 Early American paintings were exhibited at the Art Palace. This was a much smaller number than Mr. Townsend had anticipated. One writer,from an article in the New York Times reprinted in the News and Courier, thought he knew why Mr. Townsend had been less than successful in acquiring paintings to display at the exposition in Charleston. He felt that winter was a strange time of year for an exposition in the first place and this may have caused some people to not be as interested in participating in the exhibit in Charleston. The unique idea of holding a winter exposition in a place that had very pleasant winters, instead of forcing people who wanted to see an exposition to travel in hot temperatures in the middle of the summer, obviously was not enough to bring the crowds to the exposition that Charleston had hoped. In fact, it seems that it may have backfired.