by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“We have to understand the past in order to understand the future,” said Museum of Contemporary Art Curator Ben Thompson as he began his presentation Wednesday in the museum’s theater at the December installment of the “Art Matters” lecture series.
The history of collecting art for public enjoyment in Jacksonville began, Thompson said, in 1924 with the establishment of the “Fine Arts Society,” which led to the founding of the Jacksonville Art Museum in 1948.
Since then, the museum has been located on Riverside Avenue and at the Koger Center (now Midtown Centre) along Beach Boulevard. From 1999-2003, the museum had no real home until the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art opened on North Laura Street at Hemming Plaza.
In 2007, the institution’s focus changed slightly, as did its name, when it became the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville.
In the past 52 years, the permanent collection has grown to almost 800 works of art, including paintings, printmaking, sculptures and photography.
Artists represented in the collection include Hans Hoffman, Alexander Calder, Alex Katz, Robert Longo, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Jenkins, Jules Olitski, Philip Pearlstein, Jim Dine, James Rosenquist and Joan Mitchell.
From 1958-69, only 84 pieces were added to the collection. In the 1970s, Thompson said, the collection had its greatest growth, adding 360 objects.
Thompson explained how the collection has been developed and said that 79 percent of the collection is represented by gifts to the museum, while the remaining 21 percent consists of objects that were purchased.
In 2009, the museum became a cultural resource of the University of North Florida. Since then, UNF’s faculty has been “doing a lot of work to better interpret the collection,” said Thompson.
He said the strength of the collection is currently in prints and photography and he expects the museum will add to its inventory of pop art in the coming years.
The change from being a “modern art” museum to a “contemporary art” museum, combined with more than half a century of acquisitions, has made some of the collection “no longer fit the museum’s mission,” he said.
Some of the pieces will likely be sold or traded to other museums to “fill in chronological gaps” based on an ongoing evaluation by staff, UNF faculty and a permanent collection committee of museum trustees.
“Having a ‘wish list’ gives us an advantage in our strategic direction. It has been proven through history that donors are critical to developing the collection and we have longstanding relationships with local collectors,” said Thompson.
He said acquiring an original work by Andy Warhol is near the top of the “wish list,” then added, “but that would take a big, fat check.” Thompson predicted future acquisitions would be in the form of prints, which would better contribute to the museum’s educational mission.
MOCA’s “Art Matters” lecture series is at 10:30 a.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Admission is free. For more information, call 366-6911 or visit www.mocajacksonville.org.
356-2466