The Museum will be open today, August 6 from 4 to 9 p.m. Please check @cummermuseum on Facebook and Instagram or cummermuseum.org for the latest updates.
The Museum is open today from 11:00am - 4:00pm.
Ninah May Holden Cummer was more than just a patroness of the arts. She was a student of languages and world politics, an indefatigable traveler, a pillar of good works in the civic community, the founder of the first Garden Club in Florida, and a promoter of the growth of the garden club throughout the state. Indeed, it is misleading to think that the establishment of a museum was the sum total of Ninah Cummer’s civic accomplishments.
Born in 1875 in Bremen, Indiana, she attended the University of Michigan and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1895. She married Arthur Gerrish Cummer, whom she had met at the University of Michigan in October 1897. The newlyweds moved to Florida and built a Tudor style home in Jacksonville in 1903 at 829 Riverside Avenue.
Ninah was a fixture in the community of her adopted city of Jacksonville, rolling up her sleeves to assist where there was need. Her service to the community and beyond was shown by her efforts following the great fire of Jacksonville, patriotic works during WWI, the promotion of cultural welfare and beauty, the establishment of the first Garden Club in Florida, and spearheading relief efforts during WWII.
In 1943, she lost her husband, Arthur, but continued to devote herself to the improvement of what we would today call “the quality of life” in Jacksonville through the promotion of parks, roads, and other city planning initiatives. During the 1950s, at the age of 75, Ninah became a more serious art collector purchasing works by major American artists, Winslow Homer, George Inness, James McNeil Whistler and Thomas Sulley. This group of paintings was soon joined by others from the School of Canalaetto, a Gothic panel painting, a masterwork by Agnolo Gaddi, a Peter Paul Rubens to name a few. In less than 10 years, Ninah amassed the nucleus of what would become the current- day Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens collection.
Ninah passed away in 1958. Her Last Will and Testament made her the founder and benefactress of the Cummer Art Gallery. This document read as follows: “Because it is my desire to take some small part in the cultural progress of Jacksonville it is my intention… to create a Museum Foundation to be operated exclusively for educational and cultural purposes for the benefit of all of the people of the City of Jacksonville, Florida.
The Foundation is created in the full knowledge that the bequests and the endowments make only a small beginning toward a larger vision but it is created, also, in the hope that others will share this vision and by their interest and contributions will help to establish here a center of beauty and culture worthy of the community.”
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens is the culmination of the civic, social, and business involvement of a remarkable family. The Cummers came from a long line of lumber barons, whose business interests began in Canada before branching out to Michigan, Virginia, and Florida. As early as 1890, Wellington Willson Cummer (1846-1909) recognized the value of Florida cypress and prolific stands of pine timberlands in the state. After relocating his family from Morley, Michigan, to Jacksonville, Florida, he went on to found the Cummer Lumber Company in 1896. Among his many feats, Wellington built a railroad for transporting lumber from the low country of Florida to Jacksonville, where the mills and distribution centers were located. His sons, Arthur Cummer and Waldo Cummer, along with his son-in-law, John L. Roe, all of whom came up through the ranks in the family business, assumed control of the company after Wellington’s death in 1909.
The elder of Wellington’s sons, Arthur Gerrish Cummer (1873-1943) attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While there he met Ninah May Holden (1875-1958), a bright and energetic young woman who hailed from Michigan City, Indiana. Ninah was one of the few women attending the University of Michigan where she studied languages. After graduation from the university in 1895, Ninah taught Greek and Latin at Michigan City High School. Following their marriage in 1897, the newlyweds joined Arthur’s parents, Wellington and Ada Gerrish Cummer (1853-1929), and brother Waldo Emerson Cummer (1875-1936) and his wife Clara Mullen Cook (1873-1958) in Jacksonville, by then the center of the family’s thriving lumber business.
In 1902, Mr. and Mrs. Cummer began constructing a large English Tudor Revival house, replete with exterior half-timbering and richly carved interior paneling. Situated on Riverside Avenue, the home was part of the close-knit family compound of three houses with adjacent gardens, and the construction of the Cummer house led to Mrs. Cummer’s masterminding of her gardens. The development of the gardens would remain her passion until the time of Mr. Cummer’s death, with her focus expanding to the establishment of city parks for public access to garden environments. Today, the Cummer Gardens are one of the most popular locations in the city and visitors delight in their beauty.