A full-color collection of important paintings, drawings, and prints
 
“An impressive book and a handsome addition to any Floridian’s coffee table.”—Naples Daily News  
 
“Filled with a broad selection of Florida-based art by some of the world’s most famous artists.”—Fort Myers News-Press  
 
“A record of unspoiled Florida as seen through the eyes of important American artists.”—Palm Beach Illustrated
 
"The Vickers Collection is wonderfully rich, remarkably deep, and filled with the most delightful surprises."—Nicolai Cikovsky, National Gallery of Art


Celebrating Florida: Works of Art from the Vickers Collection illustrates in full color a generous selection of paintings, drawings, and prints by some of the world’s most significant artists who came to Florida from 1823 to 1950 to capture the “Sunshine State.”            
 
This book includes works by George Cope, William Glackens, Jane Peterson, Martin Johnson Heade, Herman Herzog, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Frank Shapleigh, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Arrah Lee Gaul, and William Aiken Walker. Essays on each artist present an aesthetic, historical, social, and cultural overview designed to illuminate the significance of the works of art presented.            
 
Featuring essays by Erik Robinson, former historian at the Museum of Florida History, Tallahassee, and the late Wendell Garrett, former editor of Antiques magazine, and Nicolai Cikovsky, former curator of American and British painting at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., this volume helps to situate individual works in Florida’s past. Their essays discuss Florida’s history, explore its society and statehood in 1845, and introduce the Vickers Collection. The new preface in this paperback edition refreshes readers on the importance of this collection. In highlighting and contextualizing these influential works, Celebrating Florida places them within the mainstream of American art.
 
 
Gary R. Libby is director emeritus 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.  
 

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"Combined, these essays and color prints provide a variegated portrait, not only of Florida's history, but of the nation's sense of a Florida mythos. Florida as the nation's tropical wilderness, its Fountain of Youth and its Garden of Eden."
--Tropical Breeze (Pinellas County)

"Don't miss the thrill of enjoying this fabulous publication! You will wonder how the pubisher ever offered it at such an affordable price. Sixty-six artists and their works are included."
--News-Chief (Polk County, FL)

"a record of unspoiled Florida as seen through the eyes of important American artists between 1840 and 1950."
--Palm Beach Illustrated

"a fine regional collection."
--Bookwatch (Petaluma, CA)