Elvis wasn't everywhere this year. In Memphis, that distinction belonged to University of Memphis art professor and sculptor/master of the assemblage, Greely Myatt, whose career was touted across town in the multi-venue retrospective "and exactly Twenty Years."

Beyond his deserved celebration, the Bluff City arts community stayed active with a rich array of old and new, high and low, local and international. In fact, you couldn't escape artistic expression and aspiration in 2009 whether at museums, galleries, coffee shops or even eyeglass boutiques.

Photo by Jim WeberJim Weber/The Commercial Appeal

Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art mounted its largest show ever, "Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce," in 2009. Here, chief preparator Paul Tracy directs the placement of lights for some of the exhibit's 60 works.

The Dixon's "Regional Dialect: American Scene Paintings from the John and Susan Horseman Collection" included "Service Station," a Robert Osbourne Chadeayne oil.

Photo by Mike MapleMike Maple/The Commercial Appeal

Mike Maple/The Commercial Appeal

Executive director Rehema Barber closed Power House Memphis with the city's strongest contemporary show of the year.

"The Prints of Jacob Lawrence, 1963-2000" was one of several blockbusters at the Brooks in 2009.

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The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art hit several out of the park this year with "The Prints of Jacob Lawrence, 1963-2000," which chronicled work by the Harlem Renaissance visual arts heavyweight, and "Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce," the largest single show in Brooks history.

The Dixon Gallery and Gardens also rotated one great exhibit after another, from "Regional Dialect: American Scene Paintings from the John and Susan Horseman Collection" to "Bold, Cautious, True: Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era" to "Lichtenstein in Process," suggesting that recently arrived director Kevin Sharp has the instincts and paradigm-setting tastes of such past iconoclasts and bearers of a national identity in art as Holger Cahill.

Memphis in May gave locals the opportunity to view Chilean art at once refined -- "Treasures from the National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago de Chile" at the Brooks -- and powerfully raw "¡Abstracto! Chilean Paintings of the 1960s" at the Dixon.

The National Ornamental Metal Museum kept the inspiration flowing by the river with such shows as a revisionist interpretation of the permanent collection, "Re-make/Re-model" (through Jan. 31) and the Tributaries series, which spotlighted, among others, the high art pranksterism of Nathan Dube.

The Pink Place served up the wonderful "Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity," while Elvis did enter the building for "Our Town II: Eyes on Graceland," a group show by the River City Artists collective at Memphis Botanic Garden.

The Memphis College of Art started the year with a fabulous look at local vernacular art -- "Close to Home: African American Folk Art from Memphis Collectors" -- then capped 25 years of artistic retreats to Horn Island with two exhibits: "Horn Island 25" and "Horn of Plenty: MCA Horn Island Alumni Reflect and Remember, 1985-2009." Rhodes College kept its students busy as well, including a Gallery Management course capped by final projects in April that spread the wealth over eight venues, a veritable takeover by the next generation of our city's artistic talent.

The role community plays in nurturing art could be felt in such places as Midtown church Lifelink Memphis, where Gallery 210 encourages conversation beyond the frame, and The Caritas Village, which displayed a string of socially conscious exhibits from a "Peace Exhibition" to the topical paintings of Carl E. Moore, one of the most visually singular artists working in Memphis today.

Exciting voices familiar and new were many, including: St. Genevieve, Mo., artist Ali Cavanaugh and local Jeri Ledbetter at L Ross Gallery; New York photographer Leslie Hewitt at Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College; Suzy Hendrix, who dolled up Whitehaven's Dalstrom Park with her UrbanArt Commission-sponsored sculptural series "Rock City;" Cuban painter Guillermo Portieles at Joysmith Gallery; local painter Kiersten Williams, whose work could be seen in both the National Civil Rights Museum show, "I Have a Dream: An International Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," and in the wonderful spotlight on local African American artistry at the Dixon, "Voices of a New South;" and New Orleans painter Michael Aldana, who brought his Crescent City reflections, "In Katrina's Wake," to Midtown's Lulalyn Gallery (since relocated to the South Main arts district).

Less a rival than a complement to South Main, the Broad Avenue arts district came into its own this year with fall and winter art walks and a range of shows from Russian painter Yan Karpovich at T Clifton Art to cutting-edge events at Odessa and Material.

South Main, of course, remained the vibrant heart of a commercial arts district with its monthly Trolley Tours. It suffered a blow, however, with the closing of Power House Memphis, which had been among the most adventurous art spaces in town under gallery/Delta Axis executive director Rehema C. Barber. Its final show, in fact, "Everywhere, Nowhere, Somewhere...," was, hands down, the strongest contemporary art showing all year. This writer wasn't the only one who took note. Thanks to that exhibit, Bluff City newcomer Tam Tran was selected for the 2010 Whitney Biennial, that national arbiter of emerging artists that has essentially deemed Memphis among the places to watch in the coming year.

Finally, a special mention should be given to the arguably best art blog, artbutcher.blogspot.com, in which artist Dwayne Butcher offers his highly opinionated but ever-so-relevant pulse on the state of affairs in the local arts scene.