The Greenville County Museum of Art is marking 40 years of its Antiques, Fine Art & Design Weekend with a lineup that blends a sold-out keynote from a nationally known interior designer, a nearly two-million-piece textile archive, and free public admission to browse and buy from dealers. The event runs starting Friday, October 16, at the museum's downtown home at 420 College St., with a full schedule available at gcma.org.
According to Greenville Business Magazine, this year's AFAD Weekend brings together art, antiques, interiors, and contemporary design, connecting collectors, designers, and art enthusiasts with distinguished dealers offering fine art, furniture, decorative arts, jewelry, and objects spanning varied periods and styles. New York designer Alexa Hampton serves as the 2026 weekend's special guest, and her Friday keynote has already sold out. Hampton took over design leadership of the Mark Hampton LLC design firm in 1998 and has been repeatedly named to Architectural Digest's AD100 and Elle Décor's A-List, according to the New York School of Interior Design.
Local Artists Bring Textiles Into the Gallery
Alongside Hampton, the weekend features special presentations exploring how fine art and contemporary design intersect. Travelers Rest-based artist Liz Rundorff Smith and Greenville gallerist Teresa Roche will present their work at GCMA on Sunday, October 18, discussing both their individual practices and their collaborative process, per the same report. Smith uses color, pattern, and decorative elements to elevate ordinary subjects, creating paintings that explore memory, nostalgia, and the passage of time.
Smith holds an MFA from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and her abstract work has been acquired for prominent private and corporate collections, including the Marilyn Monroe Bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according to Art & Light Gallery. Roche founded that same Greenville gallery in the Village of West Greenville as well as Teresa Roche Textiles, and she works across textiles, pattern, and interior design. The Post and Courier reports that Roche launched Art & Light as a series of pop-up shows in 2007 before expanding it into a permanent gallery representing more than 50 regional and national artists.
Together, Smith and Roche created the Alchemy Collection, which transforms original paintings into patterns for fabric and wallpaper. The weekend's presentations will feature those original paintings alongside Teresa Roche Textiles pieces and designs pulled directly from that collection, the Greenville Business Magazine report notes.
A Nearly Two-Million-Piece Textile Archive on Display
Also featured at AFAD Weekend is the Baxter Mill Archive, a collection the magazine describes as encompassing nearly two million original documents, textiles, garments, hand-painted artworks, swatches, and rare textile books spanning five centuries and cultures from around the world. It is described as one of the largest privately held collections of historic textile and surface design in North America.
The archive's holdings grew significantly after acquiring the Frank Cassata Archive in September 2023, according to Design News Now. That acquisition pushed the archive's holdings past one million design documents, including historic material from Springmaid and Wamsutta, connecting the weekend's showcase to South Carolina's deep-rooted textile manufacturing history.
Free Admission, But Some Events Require Tickets
Visitors will have the opportunity to browse and purchase from participating dealers throughout the weekend, and general admission is free. GCMA notes that while daily admission to its galleries has remained free to the community, featured keynote presentations and gala preview events have historically required separate paid tickets or benefactor-level memberships, as seen in past years' AFAD galas.
The museum, the only one in Upstate South Carolina accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, has operated out of its 90,000-square-foot modernist building on College Street since 1974, per Wikipedia. It owns 24 watercolors, which Wyeth called the 'very best collection' of his watercolors in any public museum, alongside a Jasper Johns collection. The museum sits inside Heritage Green, downtown Greenville's cultural district that also anchors Hoodline's recent Greenville Theatre coverage alongside the Upcountry History Museum and The Children's Museum of the Upstate.
AFAD fundraisers have a track record of shaping the museum's permanent holdings. The 2013 edition of the event, its 28th, generated funds that helped GCMA acquire ten American artworks commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, according to the museum's own historical records. Now in its 40th year, the weekend continues that pattern of pairing national design names with homegrown Upstate talent while funding the museum's future acquisitions.
