Two Artists, Many Stories
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens’ fall exhibitions highlight landscapes as sites of inspiration and remembrance.
By Holly Keris, J. Wayne & Delores Barr Weaver Chief Curator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens brings two impressive solo exhibitions to Northeast Florida this fall—Andrew Wyeth, one of America’s most prolific and important artists of the 20th century, and Calida Rawles, a contemporary artist considered to be a “rising star.” Despite very different artistic and stylistic bodies of work, each explore landscapes as places of memory and meaning. Both exhibitions open at the Cummer Museum on October 25.
Wyeth, who was the son of noted American artist N.C. Wyeth, experienced success at a young age and found nearly 70 years of continued inspiration at a neighboring farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. As a young boy, Wyeth would visit the Kuerners, German immigrants who lived nearby. As an adult, his studio was a short walk away and the farm became the subject of more than a thousand paintings across the years and seasons. “I recalled the marvelous amber color of the rich landscape and the lucid pond looking almost like the eye of the earth reflecting everything in creation,” Wyeth said, providing inspiration for the exhibition’s title. Co-organized by the Brandywine Museum of Art and the Reynolda Museum of American Art, “Andrew Wyeth at Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth” marks the 25th anniversary of Kuerner Farm’s transition from a family home to a public site visited and sketched by thousands annually. The Cummer Museum is the exhibition’s final venue, showcasing more than 40 paintings and watercolors, many of which have never been on display.
Although “Calida Rawles: Away with the Tides” specifically relates to the historic Black community of Overtown, a once thriving Miami neighborhood destroyed by gentrification, displacement, and specifically the construction of roadways, sadly, the narrative could apply to many other communities in the United States, including here in Northeast Florida. The water in Rawles’ paintings represents the trauma of segregation, dislocation, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But the works also use water as a metaphor for healing and resilience, as she captures members of the Overtown community at pools and beaches that were once forbidden. “Away with the Tides” is organized by Pérez Art Museum Miami Associate Curator Maritza M. Lacayo with the support of PAMM Curatorial Assistant Fabiana Sotillo. The national tour of “Away with the Tides” is presented with lead individual support from Allison and Larry Berg.
Both exhibitions’ presentations at the Cummer Museum are sponsored by season sponsors City of Jacksonville and Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville; lead sponsors the Robert D. Davis Family Foundation and the Schultz Family Endowment; and celebrated sponsors the Van Vleck Family Foundation and Director’s Circle Donors at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.
