MOCA reimagines first exhibition

MOCA Jacksonville, a cultural institute of the University of North Florida, opened “The Armory South: The 1924 Jacksonville Woman’s Club Exhibition Rediscovered” on April 10, and it will run through Nov. 23.

The exhibition reassembles core works from a forgotten but seminal Modernist exhibition mounted in March 1924 by the Woman’s Club of Jacksonville and the newly founded Jacksonville Fine Arts Society (now MOCA).

Planned to mark the beginning of the museum’s second century in 2025, “The Armory South” will tell several related stories of essential importance to the history of women in Modern art, the introduction of Modernism to the American South and the ideas and relationships shaping American art in the mid-1920s.  

The title of this new exhibition is a nod to the 1913 Armory show that propelled the Modern art movement in America. In the same way, the 1924 Woman’s Club Exhibition in Jacksonville marked the beginning of Modern art in the South. The exhibition was organized by four Jacksonville women led by Merrydelle Hoyt, a largely overlooked but pioneering advocate for Modern art in Florida, and curated by the artist Wood Gaylor. It included nearly 200 works by more than 80 cutting-edge Modernist artists, including George Ault, Peggy Bacon, Charles DeMuth, John Dos Passos, Wood Gaylor, Marsden Hartley, Thomas Hart Benton, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Adelaide Lawson, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Katherine Schmidt, Joseph Stella and Isabel Whitney, among others. Nearly one-third of the exhibiting artists were women.

Until very recently, this remarkable history had been almost completely forgotten.

Beyond its contribution to understanding a forgotten regional history of American art, this retrospective exhibition will bring completely new evidence to bear on open questions important to our broader history of American art. The exhibition will be an opportunity to reconsider both the neglected work of influential women artists and some of the now canonical artworks that shaped Modern art in America in the early 20th century.

A catalog is being created to accompany this exhibition with support from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. Guest curator is P. Scott Brown, PhD. 

The exhibition includes works on loan from the Brooklyn Museum; Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College; Forum Gallery, New York; The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville; the DeMell Jacobsen Collection; the Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation; D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York; Myron Kunin Collection of American Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Myron Kunin Collection of Art, Minneapolis, MN; Ogunquit Museum of American Art; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University; Dr. P. Scott and Sally Anne Brown; Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Wesleyan College; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Woodstock Artists Association & Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; and Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.

“The Armory South: The 1924 Jacksonville Woman’s Club Exhibition Rediscovered” is made possible by the support of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art; Anne and John Baker, Lauren Baker, Sallie Ball, Jennifer and Henry Brown, The Cummer Family Foundation, Lory Doolittle, Dita Domonkos, Anne and Charlie Joseph, Kathleen Ligare, Carol Lombardo, Emily and Lawrence Lisska in Honor of the Woman’s Club of Jacksonville, Cameron and Ryland Lucie, The Woman’s Club of Jacksonville and Ashley and Matt Wotiz.

For further information about current MOCA exhibits, click HERE.