Celebrating Florida: Works of art from the Vickers Collection

"The Vickers Collection is wonderfully rich, remarkably deep, and filled with the most delightful surprises."--Nicolai Cikovsky, National Gallery of Art
Celebrating Florida presents for the first time a full-color collection of 66 important paintings, drawings, and prints of Florida-based art.
Featuring such artists as Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Inness, William Glackens, Martin Johnson Heade, Frank Shapleigh, and Herman Herzog, the book highlights some of the world's most significant artists, who came to Florida from 1823 to 1950 to capture the Sunshine State.
Essays by noted historians Wendell Garrett and Erik Robinson discuss the settlement of Florida and its birth as a state in 1845. Additional essays present an aesthetic, historical, social, and cultural overview of the significance of the art as well as biographical information about each artist.
Celebrating Florida is a Sesquicentennial publication, part of the celebration of 150 years of Florida statehood.

Gary R. Libby is director of the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, Florida. He has served as contributing editor to Southwest Art Magazine and International Fine Art Collector Magazine . Wendell Garrett is senior vice president of American Decorative Arts at Sotheby's, New York City. Nicolai Cikovsky is curator of American and British painting at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Erik Robinson is historian at the Museum of Florida History, Tallahassee, Florida.

Celebrating Florida: Works of Art from the Vickers Collection illustrates in full color a generous selection of paintings and works on paper by some of the world's most significant artists who came to Florida from 1823 to 1950 to capture the "Sunshine State". Of particular interest to students of Florida history are two essays by noted historians Wendell Garrett and Erik Robinson, who discuss the "creation of Florida" and its birth as a state in 1845. Essays on each artist present an aesthetic, historical, social, and cultural overview - designed to clarify the significance of the works of art presented in this first-ever collection of Florida-based art. Essays on each artist with bibliographies by Henry Adams, Gary R. Libby, James Murphy, Erik Robinson, and David Swoyer help to explain the significance of individual works and their place in Florida's history and artistic record. Celebrating Florida: Works of Art from the Vickers Collection offers the most comprehensive study of Florida art currently available. It also serves as the catalog for a traveling exhibition curated at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, Florida, in honor of Florida's Sesquicentennial.