Join us for the ever popular Cummer Nassau Affinity Group Lecture Series at Story & Song Center for Arts & Culture in Fernandina Beach. This seasonal series continues with topics uniquely related to the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens Collection and current exhibitions. The 2024 Winter Series package includes:

January 31 -  The Golden Age of Dutch Art, with UNF Professor Dr. Debra Murphy

Experience the flourishing artistic production during 17th-century Holland, a period that saw a blend of economic prosperity and creative expression. The burgeoning middle class expanded patronage and the demand for specialized subjects including portraits, still-lifes, landscapes, and domestic interiors. Print production thrived in many forms including political broadsides, cartoons, and satire, as seen in the current exhibition Fake News and Lying Pictures: Political Prints in the Dutch Republic, curated by Maureen Warren and organized by Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Delve into the works of Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, and selections from the Museum’s Permanent Collection.

February 7 - The Art of Gardens: Growing the Living Collections at the Cummer Museum, with Patrick MacRae 
Explore the intersection of art and nature as Patrick MacRae, the Doolittle Family Director of Gardens & Horticulture at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, shares his approach to evolving the Museum’s historically significant gardens. Unlike museums, public gardens are living collections that offer naturally dynamic and ever-changing horticultural experiences. Join Patrick as he shares the transformation of the gardens into horticultural jewels through management, care, and the design and curation of outdoor painterly vignettes that reflect the character of each garden space and the spirit of Ninah Cummer, the Gardens’ creator.

February 14 - Expressions of Love in the Museum's Permanent Collection, with UNF Professor Dr. Debra Murphy
Celebrate Valentine’s Day by discovering a trove of love-themed subjects within the Museum’s Permanent Collection. From depictions of maternal love and the goddess of love to the love of knowledge, material wealth, and romantic and marital love, the Collection offers the perfect way to contemplate love through the lens of timeless works of art.