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  • The Museum will be open today from 11:00am - 9:00pm.
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    Admission is FREE from 11:00am – 4:00pm.

Knowing the West

Kelly Harvey on July 16, 2024

Knowing the West is a travelling exhibition that embraces and examines perceptions of the American West to be more inclusive, complex, and reflective of the diverse peoples who contributed to art and life in and about the West.

Americans often feel they “know the West,” whether informed by direct experience or popular culture. Visions of landscapes and people tangle with ideas of conflict, freedom, and nostalgia. Knowing the West embraces preexisting impressions of the American West and presents a wide variety of artwork from diverse makers from the 19th to early 20th centuries to add richness to what is often a flattened and simplified view of the American West.

Knowing the West is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, and co-curated by Mindy N. Besaw and Jami C. Powell with influence and input from a curatorial advisory council.

Image:
Nellie Two Bear Gates (Iháƞktȟuƞwaƞna Dakhóta, Standing Rock Reservation, 1854 – 1935), Suitcase, 1880 – 1910, bead, hide, oilcloth, thread, 12 1/2 in. x 17 11/16 in. x 10 1/4 in., Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN. The Robert J. Ulrich Works of Art Purchase Fund. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Related Events

Cummer Connects: Embracing Our World Together
Saturday, April 19
Free with Museum Admission | All Ages
Some Registration Required

Join us for a day of art, music, stories, dance, and immersive experiences with a variety of community partners. Explore the beauty and significance of the outdoors through the Knowing the West exhibition and the Cummer Gardens and deepen your connection to nature. Let’s come together to honor our planet, northeast Florida, and our people.

Free with Admission

11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Drop-in activities throughout the museum including a one-day sculpture installation: Bamboo Project Initiative with UNF Botanical Gardens and Late Bloomers Garden Club in the J. Wayne & Delores Barr Weaver Sculpture Garden.

11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (ongoing)
View Tree Tender – a movie created by UF to bring awareness about biodiversity.
treetender.org
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11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Live Music with Chillakaya
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Enjoy a UNF Water Stories performance (schedule tbd)
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Teens Program Clay Demonstration
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Knowing the West Curator Talk
Tuesday, April 22
7 to 8 p.m. Members $5, Future Members $25

Join Mindy N. Besaw, Ph.D., exhibition co-curator and curator of American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, for a deep dive into the exhibition, Knowing the West, and get to know some of the hidden stories behind the art and the West. Knowing the West is the first major traveling exhibition to embrace and examine how people see the American West. This program promises to provide attendees with a unique perspective on the creative processes behind exhibitions, the selection of artworks, and the narratives that emerge from them. Dr. Besaw will share insights into the curatorial process, discuss the significance of the artworks on display, and explore the complex and multifaceted history of the American West.
Register Now

Make & Take: Sweetgrass and Indigo: Gullah Geechee Inspired Art with Anastatia Ketchen
Tuesday, May 27
5 to 7 p.m. Members $35, Future Members $45
Ages 12+ | Materials Included

Learn the history of the Sweetgrass basket through a demonstration. Together we will create your own original Art piece using natural resources and shades of Indigo inspired by one of the oldest African traditions preserved within the Gullah Geechee Nation
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Summer at the Cummer

Weaving Demonstration with Jacksonville Weavers’ Guild
Friday, May 30
5 to 7 p.m. Free | All Ages

Explore the timeless craft of weaving as the skilled members of Jacksonville Weavers’ Guild work on their looms and spinning wheels. Experience the craft and try weaving yourself.

Gullah Geechee Cultural Experience with Anastatia Ketchen
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Experience the captivating storytelling, music, and artistry of Anastatia Ketchen (Lady SheRo). Through art and oral history, Ketchen will bring to life the Gullah Geechee cultural traditions of sweetgrass basketmakers of Mt. Pleasant, SC.

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Make & Take: Bead and Leather Bracelet Making
Tuesday, July 29
5 to 7 p.m. Members $25, Future Members $35
Ages 12+ | Materials Included

Explore Native American artistry through bead and leather bracelet making. In this session, you’ll learn beading techniques and work with a leather cord to create a unique, handcrafted Native American-inspired bracelet.
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Native Cuisine Workshop with Saturiwa Trading Co.
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Members $50, Future Members $70
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Make & Take: Fabric Collage Landscape with Jacksonville Modern Quilt Guild
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Create your own unique fabric landscape! In this hands-on workshop, JAXMQG members will guide you in designing a beautiful desert-inspired scene using pre-fused fabrics. After building your landscape, you’ll have the chance to elevate your piece with beading, hand embroidery, or quilting, adding intricate details that bring your vision to life. Whether you’re an experienced crafter or just starting out, this workshop offers a wonderful way to explore fabric collage in a relaxed, creative environment.
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Artful Storytime
Third Thursday
11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

  • Our Community Inspired by Our Museum as a Community Place Thursday, April 17, 2025
  • Forest Inspired by Knowing the West and the Cummer Gardens Thursday, May 15, 2025
  • Native American Tales Inspired by Knowing the West Thursday, June 19, 2025
  • Animals Inspired by Knowing the West Thursday, July 17, 2025

Art Adventures – Youth Workshops
11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

  • Watercolor Techniques
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    Ages 7 to 11
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Hand Built Clay Workshop with Artist Sonia Nowak-Vera
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Spirit in the Land

Kelly Harvey on July 16, 2024

Spirit in the Land is a contemporary art exhibition that examines today’s urgent ecological concerns from a cultural perspective, demonstrating how intricately our identities and natural environments are intertwined. Through their artwork, thirty artists show us how rooted in the earth our most cherished cultural traditions are, how our relationship to land and water shapes us as individuals and communities. The works reflect the restorative potential of our connection to nature and exemplify how essential both biodiversity and cultural diversity are to our survival.

These artists explore the ways in which our inner spaces mirror our outer ones in works that both celebrate the profound beauty of our world and mourn its loss, and with it, vanishing histories of people and place.

As the battles against climate change are often most critical for marginalized communities— environmental justice is social and racial justice—the exhibition and catalogue center the voices of artists who approach ecological awareness through a close attention to the communities most negatively affected. Acting as environmental stewards, the artists reclaim and revitalize our understanding of nature as a repository of cultural memory, a place of sanctuary, a site of resistance, and a source of spiritual nourishment and healing. As land and water provide a sense of belonging and community, the exhibition illustrates our interdependence with all life on Earth.

Spirit in the Land has its roots in North America, with shoots reaching into the Caribbean. While these artists investigate natural environments under stress, the exhibition presents a belief in the possibility of transformation and regeneration. Our desire to live in harmony with nature is ultimately what will determine our future.

Spirit in the Land is organized by Trevor Schoonmaker, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Lead Support for Spirit in the Land is provided by the Ford Foundation. Major support for Spirit in the Land is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Image:
Hung Liu, Dandelion with Red Dragonfly (silver), 2020, mixed media, 48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Museum purchase, 2021.21.1. © Estate of Hung Liu. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri: Mysteries that Remain

Kelly Harvey on March 18, 2024

One of Australia’s most acclaimed Indigenous artists, Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri was a founder of the Western Desert art movement. Mysteries that Remain is an important survey of Namarari’s work, featuring paintings on canvas and board from 1971-1990. It reveals the depth and complexity of Namarari’s artistic experiments as he restlessly strove to present the ancestral narratives of his desert homelands in new and innovative ways. Drawn from the extensive holdings of Namarari’s work in the Kluge-Ruhe Collection at the University of Virginia, Mysteries that Remain tracks Namarari’s progress from his iconographic and ritually explicit works of the 1970s to more abstracted landscapes of the 1990s. It shows Namarari to be an artist who grasped the creative challenge of painting for the art market while never losing sight of the ancestral underpinnings of his country. In turning our focus to Namarari’s art, we might see this reserved figure more clearly. And despite their alluring colors and designs, these paintings retain their mystery, hinting at the spiritual world beyond the painted image. This exhibition sheds new light on this enigmatic and important artist as he moved from detailed figurative works through to grand abstractions. A quiet, reserved man, this exhibition places Namarari in his rightful place as contemporary master.

This exhibition is organized by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia.

Image:
Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri (Pintupi, 1926 – 1998), Ceremony at Tjilka, 1973, synthetic polymer paint on composition, 23 15/16 x 18 x 1/2 in., Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, 1996.0002.002.

Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mark Stevens on February 27, 2024

Quilts are a democratic art. They provide a window into the lives of the many people who have made and used textiles, across geographic, political, social and economic contexts. Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories showcases 46 remarkable textiles by a variety of individuals—male and female, known and unidentified artists, urban and rural makers, immigrants, and Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and LGBTQ+ Americans. The exhibition explores how the quilt, which is often seen today as a timeless, quintessentially “American” art form, has in fact continuously evolved, shaped by a broadly underrecognized diversity of artistic hands and minds. Dating from the 17th century to the present day, the masterpieces on view reveal a rich—and richly complicated—story of the nation’s shared history, contributing to the evolving conversation about what defines the American experience.

Image:
Bisa Butler (American, b. 1973), To God and Truth, 2019, printed and resist‑dyed cottons, cotton velvet, rayon satin, and knotted string, pieced, appliquéd, and quilted, John H. and Ernestine A. Payne Fund, The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, and Arthur Mason Knapp Fund, ©Bisa Butler. Photograph ©Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Jacksonville’s Norman Studios: Movie Posters from the Permanent Collection

Mark Stevens on February 27, 2024

Before Hollywood dominated the film industry, Florida was the hot spot for movie executives. With our warm weather, sunny skies, convenient location, cheap labor, and diverse scenery, Florida quickly became a frontrunner in the early film business in the first part of the 20th century. Jacksonville in particular seemed a logical choice as a capital.

Julien De Casabianca: The Outings Project

Mark Stevens on December 28, 2023

In 2014, Julien de Casabianca, a French artist and filmmaker, conspired to release some of the world’s great art, typically locked away within museums, into urban settings. His global Outings project, now in more than 70 locations world-wide, is a multi-step experience. First, he isolates figures from historical works of art, then prints them large scale and installs them in urban settings, and finally photographs the new composition. In conjunction with Jacksonville Outings, the Cummer Museum presents a sampling of Mr. de Casabianca’s photographs from his Lyon, New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Warsaw installations.

Image:
Outings, New York, 2015, photograph printed on brushed silver Di-bond. Photograph courtesy of Julien de Casabianca.

Fields of Color: The Art of Japanese Printmaking

Mark Stevens on December 28, 2023

Fields of Color: The Art of Japanese Printmaking presents nearly 20 prints from the 19th to early 20th century, which were selected from a prized collection of more than 230 examples. Lush pools of color combined with delicate, dark lines create images ranging from the absurdly fantastic to the serenely mundane. These scenes of the floating world, better known as ukiyo-e prints, are defined by their ability to transport the viewer to a weightless dimension ruled by bright, vibrant hues and compositional arrangements. The captivating work of master printmakers such as Ando Hiroshige (1797 – 1858) and Katsushika Hokusai (1838 – 1912) will be on display. A small selection of netsukes — ornate sculpted toggles — will complement this exhibition.

Image:
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japanese, 1839 – 1892), 100 Aspects of the Moon: Moon of the Pleasure Quarters, 1886, woodblock print, The Dennis C. Hayes Collection, AG.1998.4.67

Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman

Mark Stevens on December 28, 2023

Organized by guest curator Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., the Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman exhibition features nearly 80 works of art, including sculptures, paintings, and works on paper, and is the first to reassess Harlem Renaissance artist Augusta Savage’s contributions to art and cultural history in light of 21st-century attention to the concept of the artist-activist. The fully illustrated companion catalogue presents the most up-to-date scholarly research, re-examines Savage’s place in the history of American sculpture and positions her as a leading figure who broke down the barriers she and her students encountered while seeking to participate fully in the art world.

A gifted sculptor, Savage (1892 – 1962) was born in Green Cove Springs and later became a significant teacher, leader, and catalyst for change. Overcoming poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination, Savage became one of this country’s most influential artists of the 20th century, playing an instrumental role in the development of some of the most celebrated African American artists, including: Charles Alston, William Artis, Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Selma Burke, Ernest Crichlow, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Morgan and Marvin Smith, whose works are also included in the exhibition. A prodigious and highly acclaimed artist in her own right, Augusta Savage created works that elevated images of black culture into mainstream America. A central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, she worked with other leaders, writers, musicians, and artists to showcase the contributions of African American culture. As a community organizer and teacher, Savage created a bridge between the first generation of Harlem Renaissance artists and subsequent generations of artists.

Through this exhibition, the Museum will highlight the artistic, social, and historic impact of Augusta Savage who, despite how she transformed the artistic landscape, is deserving of greater national appreciation. Today, Savage is best known for Lift Every Voice and Sing (formerly known as The Harp), her commissioned sculpture for the 1939 World’s Fair, and is recognized in Black community as an educator and an important community leader. However, Savage’s artistic skill was widely acclaimed nationally and internationally during her lifetime, and a further examination of her artistic legacy is long overdue. This exhibition will introduce Savage as a pioneering artist and community organizer who helped shape artistic movements that changed the way artists represent the Black figure, using art as a form of activism. This exhibition has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sotheby’s Prize and was on view between October 12, 2018 to April 7, 2019.

Image:
Augusta Savage (1892–1962), Gamin, c. 1930, Painted plaster, 9¼ x 6 x 4 in., Purchased with funds from the Morton R. Hirschberg Bequest, AP.2013.1.1