Daytona Beach and its Museum of Arts and Sciences are proud to welcome the Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art to its eclectic collection of cultural treasures. While the Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art will display a collection of Florida-themed oil and watercolour paintings that date back to the early 1800s, the Brown Museum will be more than just a traditional art museum. The Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art hopes to be a history museum as well that visually details Florida's history through its artwork.
The Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art started life in 2012 when the Museum of Arts and Sciences received a generous gift from the City of Daytona Beach and the Volusia County Council of $13 million dollars to build the new museum building, which - after much debate - was built just north of the current Museum of Arts and Sciences building along Nova Road. However, this has been a more than 20-year long journey for Cici and Hyatt Brown's collection of paintings since they were donated to the Daytona museum. To celebrate the new museum, the Museum of Arts and Sciences is choosing two winners at random from their social media pages that are privileged to attend the invitation-only ribbon cutting ceremony as well as be the first visitors inside the museum with a private museum tour.
Source: http://www.moas.org
Opening its doors to the public for the first time on February 8th, 2015, visitors will be able to browse the most extensive Florida-themed collection in the world, with 2,600 different paintings of all shapes and sizes, but all revolving around different aspects of the state. Visitors will be able to browse the visual history of Florida through viewing its geography, natural history, wildlife and even its climate. Even the building itself is a salute to everything Floridian within the museum. The steel-framed museum building was designed in the unique Florida Cracker architectural style and the exterior grounds are accented by ponds and native Florida plant life.
As the crown jewel of this new collection, the Museum of Arts and Sciences is donating its acclaimed Reflections and Reflections II exhibitions to make their debut within Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art. With both exhibitions have been hidden away from the public since 2010, the Daytona public is excited to see them re-emerge. The Reflections exhibition features a collection of paintings that depict Florida's natural landscape from idyllic beaches to lush jungles. The total of 69 paintings perfectly captures the natural beauty of Florida before the great post-World War II building boom. Alternatively, Reflections II features one hundred and sixty years of artistic creativity featuring Florida's natural landscape and wildlife through the medium of watercolour. It features acclaimed Florida artists such as John James Audubon, Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, Laura Woodward and Thomas Moran. The scenes depicted throughout the Reflections and Reflections II collections make the natural scenery look so good that art connoisseurs are sure to want to head out and explore the Florida landscape themselves.
Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau
The Reflections and Reflections II exhibits will be featured in a large gallery just off the mezzanine, however the building will also feature six changing galleries, conference and educations rooms and a cafe with outdoor seating.
City council officials and local Daytona Beach residents alike are excited for the grand opening of the Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art. It will not only be a new cultural treasure to help grow Daytona's reputation even further, but it is the only place in the world where visitors will be able to find such a focused collection. It is a place where people can come to learn about and enjoy snapshots of Florida history, places, people and customs that no longer exist outside of the paintings.