In preparation for An Evening with Fabulous Friends, the museum will be closing at 2:00 P.M. on February 25. We hope you can join ust for this wonderful event.
For Tickets: Follow the link here

In preparation for An Evening with Fabulous Friends, the museum will be closing at 2:00 P.M. on February 25. We hope you can join ust for this wonderful event.
For Tickets: Follow the link here
1. Earl Cunningham often painted from memory rather than on-location.
One example of this is Gabriel Overlooking Boothbay Harbor painted in 1960, 11 years after he settled in St. Augustine, Florida. Cunningham was born in Edgecomb, Maine, and spent some of his life in the folk-artist community of Boothbay.
Cunningham painted with a collection of artist paints as well as commercial paints like house paints. He was known to purchase cans of paint from yard sales and have as many as 20 to 30 cans in his studio. It’s possible that the pinks, greens, and yellows so prominent in his works, such as this one Sunrise at Pine Point, Maine, are commercial paints.
Cunningham might have begun to consider his works in terms of related ideas and was inspired to develop themes around known places in Maine, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, which could provide range and appeal for museum exhibitions not unlike his own gallery. One example is the above work, Seminole Village, Deep in the Everglades, which is one of many works featuring the Seminole people living in harmony with the natural wonders of the Everglades.
A recurring theme in Cunningham’s otherwise idyllic works is a bit of tragedy. Typically, as in this work titled Everglades Winter, tragedy appears in the form of fallen trees. Trees have been sawed rather than felled by natural means — meant to symbolize human destruction.
Although Cunningham stated that The Everglades was purchased by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House restoration, in a letter from her social secretary, Letitia Baldrige, Kennedy thanks Cunningham for the painting, making it appear more likely that he gifted the work to her. It is possible that the First Lady admired the work during her own visit to Cunningham’s St. Augustine studio. The acquisition of The Everglades by the Kennedy White House demonstrates the high esteem held for art reflecting the peoples of America. In 1961, it hung prominently in the White House where it could be glimpsed during presidential television interviews.
View the largest collection of Earl Cunningham’s work at the Mennello Museum of American Art.