Collections

The FSU Museum of Fine Arts permanent collection and holdings consists of over 5,000 objects and includes works in almost every medium, ranging from pre-Columbian pottery to contemporary art. The Museum has a significant number of works of art on paper including prints by well known artists.

To browse MoFA’s permanent collection database click on the link below. The Permanent Collection Database is a searchable database of artworks from the permanent collection of the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts. Each record includes basic information about the object as well as an image, when available. Information contained in the database records is, in some cases, incomplete and all information is subject to change according to ongoing research, review and new acquisitions. Visitors to the site are encouraged to contact us with additional information about an object or to alert staff about data errors in descriptions of the objects. The login information is:

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Permanent Collection and Anthropology Databases.

Ball Collection

These works were donated to the Museum by James Ball who fulfilled the wish and bequest of a friend, a soldier in World War II who had found these modest drawings and genre paintings in a destroyed artist’s studio.

Carter Collection

In holding at the Museum for FSU’s Anthropology Department, this collection was donated by John and Mary Carter in 1944. The items in this collection include a variety of ceramic vessels and textiles which are from various coastal cultures (Moche, Chimú, and the Lambayeque) and represent different time periods (Chancay, Paracas and Nazca cultures).

Chezem African Collection

Predominantly wood-carved objects but also small iron Ashanti figurines, donated by Mr. Jim Chezem in 1991.

Cranbrook Print Collection

Donated from the Printmaking Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, this collection consists of two print portfolios one entitled Re-enactment: The French Have a Word for It, and the other, Underbelly. Each suite contains 18 prints 22″ x 15″ executed in various printmaking techniques – lithography, intaglio, screen print, letterpress and relief. The prints were produced by the department’s graduate students and the department head.

Cressman Collection

Donated to the Museum by the Cressman family in the late 1970s this collection includes: ornamental glass, Wedgwood, Meissen, Peachblow, Agata, Pomona, glass and porcelain Burmese, Mother of Pearl or Satin Glass, Amberina, Spangled, Hobnail, Asian porcelain pieces, cased or overlay glass, cut and etched glass, cobalt glass, amethyst glass and many other types and styles, including the Limoges clock above.

Thomas A. Deans Donation

In 2011 Thomas Deans gifted to the Museum 4 prints from the estate of JWM Turner. In 1831 Turner had been commissioned by Sir Walter Scott’s publisher, Robert Cadell, to illustrate the “Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott,” and these prints are illustrations from that work.

Gosney Collection

A collection of artifacts from India and Asia donated to the Museum by Cliff B. Gosney Jr. in 2010. Included in the collection are an opium pipe, a Buddhist prayer wheel and a hand carved solid ivory tusk from New Delhi.

Graf/Nause Collection

Dr. Graf and Dr. Nause, of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, donated forty prints in 1973. These prints by various artists are of that period.

Kirk Collection

Twenty-five Frederic Remington bronze sculptures, restrikes of the originals, donated to the College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance by Jim and Biddie Kirk in 1994. Frederic Remington (1861-1909) is known for his illustration, painting and sculpture depicting military themes and the vanishing Old West.

Kirkpatrick Collection

This collection contains a series of 67 ukyio-e prints by Yoshida Hiroshi. The series depicts the Japanese woodblock print process in an artwork titled Night Scene after the Rain on Kagurazaka Dori and is dated 1929.

London Arts Group Collection

Through the donations of Mr. Joseph A. Schuster and Mr. Eugene I Schuster, brokered by London Arts Group in Detroit, Michigan, this collection includes: serigraph prints by Tom Blackwell, John Baeder, Ronald Kleeman, and Arne Besser; screenprints by Illya Bolotowsky, John Baedar and other artists; collotype prints by Mel Ramos.

Mason Collection

Penelope Mason specialized in Japanese art and was a professor of Asian Art at Florida State University when she wrote The History of Japanese Art, recognized as the most comprehensive account from prehistory to the 20th century. The bequest from her Estate includes: a set of prints demonstrating the various stages of a Japanese woodblock print series, a Japanese wedding chest and four Japanese scrolls dating to the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition, Dr. Mason had collected two sculpted wood reliefs by Mark Lindquist, “a chainsaw series” wood bowl by the artist and an acrylic painting on paper by British artist Trevor Bell.

Molitch Collection

The Estate of Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Molitch donated this collection in 1991. It consists of nine English prints and one framed oil on porcelain, most of which were collected in the 1920s. Four of these are 18th century, while five were made by various printmakers producing new prints in the 18th century style.

Jane and Neil Mooney Collection

Consists of over 180 African and Meso-American decorative and utilitarian artifacts from various regions and periods of time, including pottery, tribal masks and distinctive wooden sculptures that were collected by the Mooneys throughout the years and donated to the Museum in 2010.

Northwest Coast Native American Basketry

The Anthropology Department basketry collection was donated by Mary Douglas Lewis, a Florida State University alumna, in 1954. Items in this collection come from the Pacific coast region, (northern California, Oregon, and Washington up through British Columbia to Alaska) and represent examples of basketry created by Native American craftsworkers.

Palm Press

This collection is a limited edition portfolio of 12 original 19th Century, one-of-a-kind, photographs: 1 daguerreotype, 1 salt print, 1 tintype, 1 ambrotype, 3 albumen prints, 1 stereograph, 1 woodburytype, 1 photogravure, 1 blue print, 1 platinum print. Purchased from Palm Press in 1989.

Prasse-Bittel Collection

From the personal collection of Leona E. Prasse (1896-1984) the Museum has in its collection eight prints donated by Mr. and Mrs. Lynn Prasse-Bittel in 1989. The collection consists of a woodcut by Antonio Frasconi, a drypoint by George Grosz, two Paul B. Travis lithographs, two H. Gordon Warlow engravings, and etchings from Jean-Emile Laboureur and Antone Clavé.

Seymour Collection

Originally these works were donated in 1982 to the Special Collections Department of Strozier Library by Arthur and Mayce Seymour. However, they were transferred to the Museum in the Fall of 1988. The Seymour Collection consists of Oriental prints and paintings, porcelain objects, and miniature wooden objects such as a pagoda and jinrikisha. The collection also contains Asian stationery, postcards and books, dolls, fans, writing instruments, Lotus blossom shoes and other items. In total, this collection contains more than ninety Chinese and Japanese objects.

Shapiro Collection

Donated by Howard Shapiro in 1990, this collection consists of 109 photographs by Arthur Taussing. These photos include c-prints, Polaroids and color photographs, most dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Images represent in large part California but also include Texas, Florida, Washington D.C. and Mexico, as well as homages to geographical locations and images of various artists.

Through the Flower

As a result of generous donations from Through the Flower (a nonprofit organization), the Museum of Fine Arts has in its collection several Judy Chicago works from the Birth Project, including introductory documentation, text panel and samples. Works in this collection are: The Crowning Needlepoint 3, Swaddled by Nature, Birth Goddess Embroidery, The Crowing Quilt, Birth Emroidery 2 and Creation of the World Needlepoint 2.

Walmsley Collection

For over a decade, William and Dorothy Walmsley donated to the Museum in excess of 900 works of art. A well known printmaker himself, Bill Walmsley was an avid collector who donated four contemporary print portfolios (Continental Drift Portfolio, An American Printmakers Portfolio and The 2nd American Printmakers Portfolio and Drawn to Stone, a portfolio celebrating the bicentennial of lithography). Other artworks in this collection include prints from the 16th to the 20th century (including prints from Callot, Goya, Matham, Castiglione, Zorn, Villion and Dali), pieces from past FSU art department faculty and students, as well as many works by Walmsley himself.

Warhol Foundation Collection

Donated by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to the Museum in 2008, this collection contains 161 original Polaroid photographs and black and white gelatin silver prints by Andy Warhol including among others, celebrities, still lifes and nudes, that were used as the basis for his portraits, commissions and other work.

The Museum’s Permanent Collection also contains many single donations and purchases that do not make up individual collections but as a whole enrich our collection. Some of these pieces include works on paper by Old Masters such as Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), Gerard Douffet (1594-1660), Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682) and Salomon van Ruysdael (1600-1670); 17th, 18th and 19th century artists including Jacque Callot (1592-1635), Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Francisco Goya (1746-1828), William Hogarth (1697-1764) and Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778); and Modern artists such as Karel Appel (b. 1921), Jean Arp (1886-1966), Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Judy Chicago (b. 1939), Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Ernst Kirchner (1880-1938), Max Pechstein (1881-1955), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925), Man Ray (1890-1976), Jerry Uelsmann (b. 1934) and Trevor Bell (b. 1930) among others.