History

The oldest art museum in the South, the Telfair Museum of Art is an important regional and national resource for arts, culture, and history. The mansion in which the museum's collection is housed was designed by English architect William Jay in the neoclassical Regency style. Built in 1818-1819 for Alexander Telfair, son of Revolutionary patriot and Georgia governor Edward Telfair, the mansion was home to the Telfair family until 1875. Mary Telfair (pictured, top right), an early patron of the arts, bequeathed the house and its furnishings to the Georgia Historical Society to be opened as a museum.

In 1883 the Telfair mansion was enlarged with the addition of the Sculpture Gallery and Rotunda. It opened to the public in 1886 as the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to the Telfair Academy, the Telfair Museum of Art includes two other venues, the Owens-Thomas House and the Jepson Center for the Arts.

Considered by architectural historians to be one of the finest examples of English Regency architecture in America, Telfair's Owens-Thomas House was designed by architect William Jay at the age of 24. The sylish residence was built from 1816 to 1819 for cotton merchant Richard Richardson and his wife Francis Bolton, the sister-in-law of William Jay. The Richardsons soon lost their home in the financial depression of 1820.

In 1830 George Welchman Owens, congressman, lawyer, and one-time mayor of Savannah purchased the house from the Bank of the United States for $10,000. The property remained in the Owens family until 1951, when Margaret Thomas, Owens' granddaughter, bequeathed it to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (now Telfair Museum of Art).

The Telfair's third building, the Jepson Center for the Arts, opened in March 2006. Designed by internationally renowned architect Moshe Safdie, it includes expanded exhibition space for traveling shows and houses 20th and 21st century art.

Friday, July 25, 2008