Three individual collections at the Troup County Archives comprise the most comprehensive body of research material assembled regarding the life and career of Athos Menaboni and his wife, Sara Arnold Menaboni.
MS-80m: Athos Menaboni Collection of Cason Callaway/Callaway Gardens
Athos Menaboni, 1978, Courtesy Photographer John Pendle
Cason Callaway and his wife, Virginia, were friends and patrons of Athos Menaboni. They commissioned the artist for works for their personal collection as well as for Callaway Gardens, in Pine Mountain, Georgia, where they also sponsored several Menaboni exhibitions. Menaboni and his wife, Sara, shared a love for nature with the Callaways and treasured their time with them.
The Menabonis left their estates to Callaway Gardens’ Ida Cason Callaway Foundation. The Athos Menaboni Nature Wing, located in the Gardens’ Virginia Hand Callaway Discovery Center, honors his life and art. The gallery there currently has on exhibition a collection of paintings and artifacts (including the artist’s two easels). Art, correspondence files, photographs, scrapbooks, and other ephemera were also given to the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation after the death of Sara Menaboni. The Foundation then donated most of this material to the Troup County Archives to ensure proper storage, preservation, and conservation.
Don Russell Clayton was also a friend of Sara and Athos Menaboni, and is a collector of all things related to the artist. He has added appropriate items to the collection since it was donated to the TCA.
MS-2014.02: Athos Menaboni Collection of D. Russell Clayton
D. Russell Clayton, 2009, Courtesy Kennesaw State University
Don Russell Clayton (1959- ), a retired educator from Marietta, Georgia, was a personal friend of Athos Menaboni and Sara Arnold Menaboni (his wife). He became acquainted with them because of his interest in the history of The Coca-Cola Company and its longtime leader, Robert W. Woodruff – the artist’s greatest patron. They first met in 1987 and Clayton soon became an avid and passionate collector of all things associated with Menaboni.
In 2007 he donated an extensive collection of art and ephemera to Kennesaw State University, in Kennesaw, Georgia. The paintings, lithographs, and prints form the Athos Menaboni Collection at KSU and others have also contributed to it. The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation sponsored the Don Russell Clayton Gallery in the Zuckerman Museum of Art (on KSU’s Kennesaw campus), to honor Menaboni’s life and art. In 2013 the archive collection was transferred to the Troup County Archives.
MS-2014.01: Robert W. Woodruff Collection of D. Russell Clayton
Robert W. Woodruff, c. 1957, Courtesy The Coca-Cola Company
Don Russell Clayton (1959- ), a retired educator from Marietta, Georgia, began this collection at age thirteen because of his interest in the history and memorabilia of The Coca-Cola Company. Since childhood, he has admired Robert Woodruff because of his direct influence on the Company’s success and for being one of the most generous philanthropists in the United States. His kindness was extended to Clayton after June Boykin Tindall gave him two shares of Coca-Cola stock, in 1977, to celebrate his high school graduation. He then wrote to Woodruff to inform him about another Company owner and a pen pal relationship continued for several years. He was also acquainted with Joseph W. Jones, Woodruff’s assistant, who served as a senior vice president and a member of the board of directors of The Coca-Cola Company, and as a trustee of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.
Robert Woodruff was the greatest patron of Athos Menaboni. Russell Clayton became a personal friend of Athos Menaboni and assembled an extensive collection of his art and ephemera which was given to Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. The archival collection was later transferred to the Troup County Archives.
