The Florida Collection

Within the American collection, the Cummer is developing a specialty centered on the art and culture of Florida. The earliest works are a significant group of 16th century engravings by Theodor de Bry, whose travel books documented René de Laudonnière on a French Huguenot expedition to Florida. Thomas Moran’s large history painting of 1877-78, Ponce de Léon in Florida, was added to the collection in 1996. Mrs. Cummer’s bequest included Winslow Homer’s watercolor The White Rowboat, St. Johns River (1890). Other landscapes including Martin Johnson Heade’s The St. Johns River (c. 1890-1900) and Herman Herzog’s Figure in River Landscape (c. 1910) were added to the collection in 1966 and 1987 respectively. John James Audubon’s Florida Rats (1841) was also purchased in 1966. In 2001, the Museum purchased a collection of watercolors (from 1921) documenting the Florida childhood of Frederick Frieseke. The Eugene Savage collection explores representations of the Seminole Indians from 1932–1954. Augusta Savage’s sculptures The Diving Boy (c. 1939), a bequest from Mrs. Cummer, and Gamin (c. 1930), purchased in 2013, document the career of this Green Cove Springs, Florida native as well as Jacksonville’s ties to the Harlem Renaissance.