Harn Museum receives City Beautification Board’s highest honor

May 1, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Harn Museum of Art accepted the Gainesville City Beautification Board’s 2006 Outstanding Achievement Award at an awards ceremony April 26 at the Thomas Center in downtown Gainesville.

The Outstanding Achievement Award, the highest awarded by the City Beautification Board, was given to the Harn Museum for its new Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion. The Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion opened Oct. 22, 2005, with a gala reception and party. The 18,000-square-foot addition brings the total space in the museum to 86,800 square feet, making it one of the largest university art museums in the Southeast.

“All of us at the Harn are greatly honored by this prestigious award from the Gainesville City Beautification Board,” Harn Museum Director Rebecca Nagy said. “The award is a fitting tribute to the generous donors who made the Cofrin Pavilion possible, the talented architects who designed the building, and all those who contributed to its construction, landscaping and programming.”

The new pavilion has about 6,500 square feet of additional exhibition space, a café, an outdoor landscaped plaza with water features, and multifunction space to be used for meetings, workshops and educational activities. The exhibition space is dedicated to the Harn Museum’s contemporary collection representing international art in all media created since World War II. The inaugural exhibition, American Matrix: Contemporary Directions for the Harn Museum Collection, features exemplary American art from the Museum’s collection and other important public and private sources.

The Camellia Court Café, located on lower level of the pavilion, serves light fare such as soups, salads, sandwiches, tapas, pastries, and beer and wine. The café also serves other venues at the UF Cultural Plaza, allowing visitors to be able to enjoy lunch and dinner. The café also adds additional space for special events at the museum.

The addition was made possible by a generous $3.2 million gift from Dr. and Mrs. David A. Cofrin. Mary Ann Harn Cofrin is daughter of the late Samuel P. Harn for whom the museum is named. The original gift provided for building funds and acquisitions endowment and received matching funds through the University of Florida. The architect was UF alumnus Kha Le-Huu & Partners.

The Harn Museum of Art is named in honor of Samuel Peebles Harn (1893-1957), whose widow, three daughters and their husbands, and grandchildren made the founding gift to the University of Florida for the museum’s construction. The three generations pledged more than $3 million toward the construction of a fine arts museum in 1983. Additional private gifts were raised as well as matching funds for the project.

The museum offers, along with high-quality permanent and traveling exhibitions, a full range of educational programs for the general public as well as the academic community. University students are afforded research, study, and work opportunities, while visitors of all ages benefit from the museum’s films, lectures, tours and workshops. These educational programs are designed to complement current exhibitions and encourage visitors to develop a lifelong appreciation of art and culture.