St Augustine art galleries

Art Exhibition | 10/29/21 – 10/30/22
Picturing a Nation: American Art from the Lightner Museum | GROUP
St. Augustine

Lightner Museum
75 King St St. Augustine FL 32084
(904) 824-2874

Picturing a Nation is a major reinstallation of American paintings and sculpture from the Lightner Museum’s permanent collection.

In the decades following the Civil War the United States witnessed a period of rapid modernization. The dramatic shift from an agrarian to industrial economy irrevocably transformed the country. As a new nation emerged artists critics and patrons all sought to define an American art that captured the spirit of the young nation.

While American cultural political and commercial life underwent tremendous changes opportunities for the creation exhibition and sale of works of art expanded spurred in part by increased patronage from new sources of wealth. The entrepreneurs of the post-Civil War era amassed great fortunes through financing railroads oil mining iron and steel and other capitalist ventures. These titans of American business industry and commerce expressed their new-found status by building stately mansions which they filled with beautiful objects and substantial art collections.

To satisfy their Gilded Age patrons American artists embraced the broader artistic traditions of Europe exploring subject matter and styles entirely new to American art. During this time still life genre the human figure natural history and particularly the Romantic landscape became popular subjects for American artists. European styles—Neoclassicism Romanticism Realism and Impressionism— were all adopted by artists who filtered them through a uniquely American lens.

From America’s great vistas and natural wonders to intimate scenes of St. Augustine Picturing a Nation presents a vibrant vision of the country on a local and national scale through late-nineteenth and early twentieth century American art.

Art Exhibition | 03/15/22 – 11/13/22
REVOLVE | PERMANENT COLLECTION WORKS
Jacksonville

Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
829 Riverside Ave Jacksonville FL 32204
904-356-6857

Throughout the Museum’s 60-year history its permanent collection has grown from 60 objects to more than 5000. See this collection in a new light as familiar works are paired with exciting loans from global contemporary artists working across media. Even though they span generations and geographic boundaries Tiffany Chung Jean-Ulrick Désert Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian Juan Fontanive Titus Kaphar John Frederick Kensett Amy Sherald Frans Snyders Pat Steir and Mildred Thompson among others explore the concepts of portraiture landscape cartography allegory and natural world. Come take a moment to consider the expected and unexpected links between them.

This Exhibition is organized by the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.

Exhibition Season Presenter

City of Jacksonville

Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville

Lory Doolittle

Ronald and Karen Rettner

Exhibition Lead Sponsor

State of Florida

The Robert D. Davis Family Endowment

The Schultz Family Endowment

Exhibition Sponsor

Director’s Circle Donors at the Cummer Museum

The Winston Family Foundation

Presenting Sponsor

Ronald and Karen Rettner

Art Exhibition | 03/25/22 – 02/12/23
FIFTY
An Alumni Exhibition | GROUP SHOW
Jacksonville

Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville
333 N Laura St Jacksonville FL 32202
904-366-6911

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of The University of North Florida and underlining MOCA’s special affiliation as a cultural institute of UNF this exhibition showcases the work of fifty artists each having graduated from the Department of Art Art History and Design and having carved substantial careers as professional practicing artists. Working across a breadth of media – from photography to painting film to ceramics and sculpture to printmaking – the diversity of work on display is reflective of the variety of art disciplines taught at UNF as well as the wealth of career opportunities that UNF alumni choose to explore. The first exhibition of its kind FIFTY demonstrates the strength of art and creativity at UNF as well as its continued impact and reach in Jacksonville across the nation and around the world.

Co-curated by Caitlín Doherty Executive Director MOCA Jacksonville and Louise Freshman Brown Distinguished Professor Emerita University of North Florida.

Art Exhibition | 04/01/22 – 12/31/22
War & Pieces | Bouke de Vries

St. Augustine

Lightner Museum
75 King St St. Augustine FL 32084
(904) 824-2874

This spring the Lightner Museum’s grand ballroom gallery will be transformed by a dramatic ceramic centerpiece created from thousands of fragments of white porcelain.

War & Pieces is a monumental sculpture created by London-based Dutch artist Bouke de Vries. A former conservator of ceramics de Vries uses broken ceramics as the primary medium for his artwork celebrating the “beauty of destruction” through his fragmentary sculptures.

De Vries’ War & Pieces is a contemporary interpretation of the decorative sculptures that adorned Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century banquet tables. During the era the ruling classes set their tables for the dessert course with elaborate centerpieces painstakingly fashioned from costly sugar. These whimsical structures depicted classical allegories grand battles and architectural follies. Over time the fragile confectionary creations were replaced with porcelain fabricated by the leading manufacturers of the day including Meissen and Sèvres who used skilled confectioners as their first modelers.

De Vries reinvents this tradition creating a provocative battle scene where sugar historic porcelain and modern plastic wage a war of materials eras cultures and values.