By Michael Knoll, HistoryMiami

On February 18^th, 2011, HistoryMiami opened Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865-1965, featuring art from the Cici and Hyatt Brown collection, the largest private collection of Florida-based art in existence. Reflections was organized by the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, Florida. Its closing date is Sunday, May 15^th, 2011.

The exhibition includes pieces by well-known American artists who represent a “Florida School” of painting. These painters include Thomas Hart Benton, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Martin Johnson Heade, Herman Herzog, Walt Kuhn, Jane Peterson, Frederic Remington, William Aiken Walker and N.C. Wyeth. The exhibition features other painters as well.

The sixty-nine paintings exhibited in Reflections depict Florida before the post-World War II building booms, and feature landscapes, flora and fauna, including the whooping crane (pictured above in N.C. Wyeth’s Dance of the Whooping Cranes), as well as historical portraits of Floridians and famous landmarks and structures from St. Augustine to Key West.

HistoryMiami is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Parking is available at the Miami-Dade Cultural Center Garage at 50 NW 2^nd Avenue. For more information, call 305-375-1492 or visit www.historymiami.org.