Our Collection

Our Collection

Fine Arts | Decorative Arts | Regional History

Send an artistic greeting to a friend with our Ecards featuring many images
from the Museum's collection and temporary exhibitions.

FINE ARTS

Our collection of American drawings, paintings, sculpture and decorative arts represents almost 300 years of artistic development. Objects are displayed chronologically by style to show the general evolution of American art from the colonial period to the present.

18th and 19th Century American Art

Strengths within the 18th and 19th-century American collection include drawings, mid 19th century landscape and genre paintings, as well as works by important artists associated with Impressionism and other early modern art movements.


BENJAMIN WEST, Male Nude, 1784, charcoal, chalk and pastel over reed pen and ink on laid paper. Museum purchase made possible by the Endowment Fund in Honor of D.A. Turner.	THOMAS SULLY, Mrs. Caleb Newbold and Her Son Thomas, 1813, oil on canvas. Museum purchase made possible by support from the Edward Swift Shorter bequest Fund.


WINSLOW HOMER, Pond Lilies, 1884, charcoal, chalk and gouache on laid paper. Museum purchase made possible by the Art Acquisition and Restoration Fund, the Endowment Fund in Honor of D.A. Turner and the Edward Swift Shorter Bequest Fund.	WILLIAM MERRIT CHASE, My Daughter, Alice, 1888-89, oil on canvas. Museum purchase made possible by Friends of the Museum.

Modern & Contemporary American Art

The modern and contemporary collections include examples of Abstraction, Social Realism, Surrealism and other important movements. While drawings are a special area of strength, the collection also contains an outstanding group of paintings and sculptures. Artists of regional, as well as national, significance are featured.


WILLIAM ZORACH, New Horizons, 1951, bronze. Museum purchase made possible by the Endowment Fundin honor of D.A. Turner.	ALMA THOMAS, Air View of a Spring Nursery, 1966, acrylic on canvas. Gift of the Columbus-Phenix City National Association of Negro Business Women and the artist.


ALICE NEEL, Swedish Girls, 1968, oil on canvas. Museum purchase made possible by the Ella Kirven Charitable Lead Trust for Acquisitions and partial gift of the artist’s estate.	LEONARD BASKIN, Sibyl with Crows, 1980, bronze. Museum purchase made possible by the Edward Swift Shorter Bequest Fund.


BO BARTLETT, Homecoming, 1995, oil on linen. Museum purchase made possible by Norman S. Rothschild in honor of his parents, Aleen and Irwin B. Rothschild.	DALE CHIHULY, Boat Installation, 2001, hand-blown glass, wood, 87 x 76 x 203 inches. Museum purchase made possible by Thornton and Sue Jordan with Miles, and C. Dexter (Jr.) and Pat Jordan, with Mint, Ruth and Zach in memory of C. Dexter Jordan, Sr.

Dale Chihuly is the world's leading proponent of studio glass. His works are in some 200 museums, including the Birmingham Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Mint Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Chrysler Museum and the new glass museum in Tacoma.

Boat Installation is a 17-foot wood river dory filled with pieces of studio glass of varying shapes and colors. The assembled piece measures almost 20 x 9 x 10 feet. It is in the Museum's Chattahoochee Legacy Gallery.

DECORATIVE ARTS

The Museum’s decorative arts collection includes silver, furniture, porcelain, earthenware as well as furniture and glass. An area of recent growth is American Brilliant Period cut glass and Federal furniture.

Made around 1908, this organic glass form measures 19 inches tall by 10 inches wide at the blossom's widest point. Louis Comfort Tiffany declared that his life-long goal was "the pursuit of beauty." Originally trained as a painter, he began studying the chemistry and techniques of glassmaking when he was 24. He developed this interest as a partner in the firm of Louis C. Tiffany and Associated Artists, which in its four years of operation (1879-1883) provided innovative interior decoration for clients ranging from Mark Twain in Hartford, Connecticut to President Chester Arthur at the White House. Tiffany's aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be the primary source of design inspiration. He translated into glass the lush palette found in flowers and plants. This fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of the medium led to the exploration of another technique. In 1893, Tiffany introduced his first blown-glass vases and bowls, called "Favrile," whose name, he declared, was taken from an old English word for hand made. Favrile glass quickly gained international renown for its surface iridescence and brilliant colors. One of the Columbus Museum's newest acquisitions, called Jack-in-the-Pulpit, is an excellent example of this technique.


UNKNOWN MAKER, attributed to Baltimore, Maryland, active early 19th century Card Table in the Helpplewhite style, ca. 1795-1800, mahogany, with secondary woods of pine, oak and holly. Museum purchase made possible by the Daniel P. and Shannon L. Amos Foundation, "A Friend of the Museum": In honor of Mrs. Clarence Butler, and The Watson Fund: In memory of Brig. Gen. Paul C. Watson.	ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN SEYMOUR, Lady's Writing Desk and Bookcase, ca. 1795. Museum purchase made possible by the Art Acquisition and Restoration Fund.


LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY, Jack-in-the-Pulpit Vase, 1908, Favrile glass. Museum purchase with funds from the D.A. Turner Fund and the Art and Restoration Fund.	WILLIAM MOORE (for Loud & Brothers), Piano Forte, 1831,mahogany veneer with rosewood banding and embossed brass. Museum purchase made possible by the Endowment Fund in Honor of D.A. Turner.

REGIONAL HISTORY

Travel back in time and trace the development of the Chattahoochee Valley area in Chattahoochee Legacy, the Museum’s regional history gallery. View an award-winning film about this history of this area. The film is shown at 10:30 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Archaeological Objects


Shell necklace, Cannon site (9CP108), Lake Blackshear, Georgia Woodland (ca. 1000 BCE-900 CE), conch shell disc beads. Columbus Museum excavation.	Left to Right: 1. Clovis type point (cast). 2. Clovis point, ca. 10,000 B.C.E., chert, South Georgia. Columbus Museum Archaeological Study Collection.	Dog effigy pot, Bull Creek (9ME1), Muscogee County, Georgia Late Mississippian (ca. 1350-1650 CE), ceramic. On loan from the National Park Service.


Left to Right: 1. Southeastern Indian Stone Axe Blade, ca. 1550, greenstone, Abercrombie Site, Alabama, Columbus Museum excavation. 2. Southeastern Indian Shell Rattlesnake Gorget, ca. 1550, whelk shell, Etowah Site, Georgia, Gift of Tom Huston. 3. Southeastern Indian Shell Face Mask Gorget, ca. 1550, whelk shell, Abercrombie site, Alabama, Columbus Museum excavation. 4. Southeastern Indian Shell Rattlesnake Gorget, ca. 1550, whelk shell, Abercrombie Site, Alabama, Columbus Museum excavation.	Bull Creek Pipes. On loan from the National Park Service.

Contact Period	19th Century

Stone figure, Southeast Late Mississippian to Historic (ca. 1350-1750 CE), Stone with impressions representative of brass buttons on European military uniform	Unknown Maker, Daguerrotype portraits of Horace King and Sarah Jane Jones King, Ca. mid to late 1800s. Museum purchase.

Civil War Era	Reconstruction Era

Columbus Guards' Presentation Dipper, engraved Columbus Guards to John W. Hodges Best Shot at 100 Yards 3 1/16 Inches May 25, 1857, 1857, silver-plate, 15 inches long, rim 3 3/4 inches diameter (38.1, 9.52 cm). Museum purchase. Middle: .40 Caliber Single-Shot Dueling Pistol, ca. 1860, manufactured by J.H. Happoldt, Columbus, Georgia. Museum purchase. Bottom: .36 Caliber Colt Navy Pattern Revolver, ca. 1864, manufactured by Columbus Firearms Manufacturing Company, Columbus, Georgia, Museum purchase.	Detail of Columbus Prisoners' Cane. The cane is inscribed as follows: Honorable James B. Beck, A grateful remembrance From the Columbus prisoners, 1. E.J. Kirksey 2. R.A. Daniel 3. The W.D. Chipley 4. Cliff B. Grimies, 5. C.C. Bedell. Museum purchase made possible by a generous donation, from Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Broda, Jr., and a Friend of the Museum.


Confederate Officer's Coat, ca. 1863, wool with velvet and metallic trim and brass buttons, worn by Colonel Peyton H. Colquitt, of Columbus, GA. Gift of Estelle L. Hinde and John K. Hinde.

The Museum has acquired some notable objects related to Columbus' history during the Radical Reconstruction era (1866-1877). Last year, the Collections Committee purchased a gold-hilted ebony walking stick from a dealer in Victoria, British Columbia. This beautiful artifact commemorates the Ashburn Murder Trial, a tumultuous event that took place in Columbus in 1868, and had repercussions throughout the state of Georgia.

The story is as follows: At midnight on March 30, 1868, George W. Ashburn, a state Constitutional delegate, was assassinated in his sleep by a party of men wearing hoods and masks. A white Radical, Ashburn lived with African-Americans at a rooming house at the northwest corner of 13th Street in Columbus. The murder created much excitement throughout the state, with threats of vengeance, mass meetings and near riots. The military took the matter in hand and arrested nine men. They were held at the courthouse for four days and nights. While in confinement, the prisoners were subjected to violent measures to extort confessions. A military court was finally organized to try them in Atlanta on June 29. Hon. James B. Beck, who had served in the U.S. Congress from 1867-1890 and was known as the "Savior of the South," presided. The prisoners were released on bond of $2500 each and returned to Columbus. In appreciation for their acquittal, they presented Beck with an inscribed gold-hilted ebony cane.

By coincidence, both the Democratic Convention and the new General Assembly were meeting in Atlanta at this time. Georgia was still under military rule and not in the Union, and the most important measure before the Assembly was the question of the adoption of the 14th Amendment. On July 21, the resolution for adoption was passed, and the following order: "In view of the action of the legislature today and the probable immediate admission of the State of Georgia, and consequent cessation of military authority, the commanding general directs that the commission of which you are president will suspend further proceedings in the trial of the prisoners charged with the murder of Ashburn."

Shortly after acquiring the cane, the Museum's history department found an engraving from Frank Leslie's Illustrated (1868) entitled "The Ku Klux Klan At Work -- The Assassination Of The Hon. G.W. Ashburn, In Columbus, Georgia." These items, and many other newly acquired history objects, were featured in an exhibition about social history, Treasures: Celebrating 175 Years in the Chattahoochee Valley, which opened in September 2003.

Purchase of the Columbus Prisoners' Cane was made possible by a generous donation from Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Broda, Jr., and a Friend of the Museum.

20th Century Industry	Late 20th Century

LEWIS WICKES HINES, Macon, Georgia 94-531, 1909, Gelatin silver print. Museum purchase.	UNKNOWN MAKER, Jimmy Carter Peanuts, Peanuts in plastic bag. Museum purchase.