Fine Arts Collection
Opportunities to work with our Fine Arts Collection are available to our Fine Arts majors. Let the collection inspire you! You can assist with research, exhibitions and learn museum studies skills. Internships with the collection and the gallery are offered.
Our art collection began in earnest in April of 2017 when 155 works of African art were donated to the Visual Arts Program by the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida. Through the generosity of the Rebecca Nagy, Director, and Susan Cooksey, Curator of African Art, it was decided to transfer these objects into our care. Our faculty are dedicated to offering exhibitions, programs and resources that encourage interaction and engagement with the artwork. The collection is currently the largest publicly-accessible African art collection in the Tallahassee area.
To announce the donation, the Visual Arts program held the exhibition, ““A Single Bracelet Does Not Jingle: Recent Donations of African Art to the Visual Arts Collection,” in our Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Gallery from October 10-December 8, 2017. Curated by
Courtnay Micots, Associate Professor of Art History, this exhibition incorporated research by students
in Dr. Micots’s African Art History course and Foster-Tanner Fine Art Gallery interns.
Students were given more responsibility in the exhibition “Perceptions: Encounters with African Art” from October 7 to November 8, 2019, in FAMU’s Architecture Gallery. Students in African Art History assisted with the exhibition design, research, installation and de-installation, and creation of an educational program. This exhibition asked viewers to question their perceptions of African art and culture. On view were student visual projects from several class assignments in the program, including pen and ink, charcoal and marker drawings, watercolor paintings and computer media short videos alongside the artworks from the collection that inspired their work.
The art collection consists of a variety of media, forms and cultures from throughout the African continent. Highlights include works in gold, wood, basketry and textiles from the late 19th to 20th century from Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The mission of the Fine Arts Collection is to inspire and educate our students. While the collection currently includes art solely from the continent of Africa, we are interested in expanding the collection to include art by artists of the African Diaspora.
