Hand Art Center Exhibit Draws Record Attendance

Hand Art Center, Stetson University

Hand Art Center, Stetson UniversityAn exhibit in the Gary R. Libby gallery at the Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center on Stetson’s DeLand campus drew record-breaking attendance for May and June.

American Painting and the Florida School of Art — Selections from Private Collections opened May 13 after a private showing a week earlier and closed on July 2. During May and June the Hand Art Center experienced a more than 200 percent increase in attendance over the same period in 2015. In the first six months of this year the Hand Art Center has seen a 40.73 percent increase in attendance with 6,624 total visitors.

“Until recently the Hand Art Center had only been open during the academic year,” said Tonya Curran, director of the Hand Art Center. “In an effort to inform the public that we are open during the summer months of May and June we wanted to bring in a dynamic exhibit that would draw interest from a wider geographic area.

Picture of 1885 oil painting of St. Augustine waterfront
St. Augustine Waterfront 1885, by Charles Grafton Dana

“Florida paintings have often been acquired by museums out of the state and in private collections so the opportunity to invite someone of Gary R. Libby’s [guest curator of the exhibit] stature and experience to curate the show was a wonderful opportunity to highlight the Florida School of Art and draw attention to the offerings of the Hand Art Center,” Curran continued. “Likewise, none of this would have been possible without the generosity of the individuals who shared their tremendous collections with us. I am deeply grateful for the CiCi and Hyatt Brown, Earl and Christy Powell, Lisa and Stuart Sixma, and the Museum of Arts and Sciences for making this exhibit possible.”

Some of the paintings were landscapes or scenes from around north and central Florida such as Lake Winnemissett, Ormond Beach, Englewood, St. Augustine, Ponce Inlet, St. Petersburg and other Florida locations. The exhibit brought together 30 paintings dating from approximately 1825 to 1925 by significant artists who had been influenced by Florida. “To have a school of art, artists also have the ability to incorporate into their paintings elements that refer to bigger things such as the Bible or history,” according to Libby. Just as novels embody allusions and symbols, “you see that in paintings, too. There’s a second layer of meaning in a serious painting.”

Libby defines a “Florida painting” as “Florida subject matter — a representation of Florida by an artist who, whether he lived here or not, felt his inspiration in Florida. And 90 percent of them were done in the state.” The exhibition also includes works by artists who taught or influenced Florida School painters but who are not part of the school, hence the inclusion of Robert Henri.

Next up at the Hand Art Center are three shows opening on Aug. 19. More will be written about these shows in coming weeks:

  • Aquiferious, featuring the work of Gainesville, Fla., artist Margaret Ross Tolbert;
  • Faculty Focus on Gary Bolding, who has taught painting and drawing at Stetson since 1989; and
  • Oscar Bluemner: The Language of Architecture — Works from the Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection.

By Janie Graziani