The Mattie Kelly Arts Center Galleries house a multi-million-dollar collection, comprising over 7,000 items that range from contemporary to classical art, including a set of 135 Salvador Dalí watercolor woodblock prints, as well as historical artifacts dating back to antiquity, such as Turkish amphorae from circa. 600 B.C., the most extensive Holzhauer Collection in the world, for which we are the international copyright holders of Holzhauer image use, and the Congressman Robert L.F. Sikes Collection. We curate the Doolittle Raiders World War II Permanent Exhibit in Raider Sports Arena and the Congressman Robert L. F. Sikes Museum in Crestview. MKAC Galleries curates and implements seasonal fine arts programming utilizing 2700 square feet of gorgeous exhibition space on the Niceville Campus. We offer workshops, guest artist presentations, faculty development opportunities, tours, internships, and an educational volunteer program.

The Original Campus Collection

Okaloosa-Walton Junior College was founded in 1963, and classes began in 1964.  Within only its first few years as an institution, community members began building the college’s fine art collection through donations and bequests.  These pieces – representing a wide range of original and reproduction media – were displayed in classrooms and public spaces; many of these early additions to the collection can still be seen around campus.

Before there was an Arts Center (complete with art storage facilities), works of art in the Campus Collection were catalogued like books and were considered part of the library’s holdings.  The most fragile and valuable artworks were stored in the Rare Books Room, the closest facility the college had to an art vault in those days.

The Campus Collection has continued to grow through five decades of collecting and remains the backbone of the larger Permanent Collection.  It remains a broad-based teaching collection, representing arts of all media, genres, and styles.

The Emil Holzhauer Collection

In 1967 artist Emil Holzhauer bequeathed the preponderance of his artwork, over four hundred of his paintings and studio papers (including sketchbooks, photographs, and studio documents to NWFSC- making NWFSC the custodians of the largest singular collection of Holzhauers. The college created Holzhauer’s Honorary Art Department Chair in memory of his legacy. The college cares for displaying the collection with two priorities: first, to show the versatility and accomplishments of the artist, and second, to preserve the visual images he collected over his lifetime. Since 1967, private collectors have donated several of Holzhauer’s works, expanding the Holzhauer collection.

Holzhauer’s work is characteristic of the Ashcan School of Painting, which advocated painting directly from life with freedom and spontaneity. The artists of this progressive school of art became leaders of the American modern art movement (American Modernism), which arose in the second decade of the 20th century in New York City.

Holzhauer emphasized emotionality and representation as an advocate of this painting style. His paintings of people evoke a sense of intimacy, immediacy, and respect for the dignity of the individual. While primarily representational, his work owes a great deal to the doctrine of freedom of line, color, and form and masters such as Cezanne and Van Gogh.

Holzhauer was fascinated with the possibilities of articulation via a strong outline. Therefore, he executed most of his paintings with broad strokes of bold color, methodically outlining forms to draw the viewer’s attention to the composition. Throughout his career, Holzhauer experimented with color and theme. However, he was always consistent in his use of form and line. This sincere tenacity is the source of the dynamic signature style that enables the eye to recognize a Holzhauer painting easily.

– by J. Wren Supak, MFA, MA

The L.R. Davis Early American Flint Glass Goblet Collection

Lachlan R. Davis of Destin (a Washington, D.C. native) bequeathed his Flint Glass Goblet Collection to Okaloosa-Walton Community College in 1994 (the M.J. Davis Bellflower Collection was donated at the same time). Over 330 goblets comprise the collection, which was assembled between 1950 and 1993.  It is one of the most complete collections of such goblets in the United States.

Goblets in the Davis collection date from 1829 – 1870.  Most were created prior to the Civil War using crude, hand-held iron pressing machines.  These early presses used a glass formula that contained lead, which made the molten glass more pliable and produced a prism-like quality comparable to the more expensive European lead crystal of the day.  Flint glass is therefore often referred to as “poor man’s crystal.”

Though it remained in limited production during and after the American Civil War, flint glass largely disappeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Lead was scarce as resources were shifted to the war effort, and new techniques for making cheaper, safer alternatives were developed.

The L.R. Davis Early American Flint Glass Goblet Collection represents a distinct moment in the history of American domestic art.  No two goblets in the collection are the same; Davis instead chose to assemble a collection that described the staggering breadth of this unique American art form.

The M.J. Davis Bellflower Pattern Pressed Glass Collection

Mildred J. Davis donated her extensive collection of Bellflower pattern pressed glass to Okaloosa-Walton Community College in 1994; her gift was made alongside her husband’s bequest of his Flint Glass Goblet Collection.  Around 1830, soon after the advent of the American pressed glass industry, manufacturers began producing complete sets of tableware in matching patterns.  The Davis Bellflower collection, which decorates glassware with a delicate design of flowers, vines and tendrils, and incised lines, is fully complete save two goblets that Davis was never able to find.

The Sublette New Guinea Collection

In 1994, Alvah T. Sublette, Jr. of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, donated the 300-piece New Guinea “Primitive” Art Collection to Okaloosa-Walton Community College.  Sublette and his wife, Betty, had been world travelers for years and amassed an extensive collection of folk arts and traditional crafts on their visits to Europe, Central America, the South Pacific, and Asia.

All items in the collection were obtained in the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea or from sites along the Gulf of Papua.  They were created from wood and decorated with natural materials (plant and animal products), and colored with natural dyes and pigments like charcoal, lime, and ochre.  The range of objects in the collection is spectacular; life-size (or larger) figures, hooks and bowls, tools, instruments, masks, jewelry, and shields are but a few of the objects represented, nearly all of which would have been used in a ritual or spiritual context.

Alvah Sublette donated his New Guinea Collection in memory of his wife, Betty Sublette and their son, Oliver T. Sublette, who both died in 1991.  During his lifetime, Oliver had worked as an artist and a drama coach with the New Guinea National Theatre, and had helped his parents amass their impressive collection as he recorded stories and local histories in the remote wilds of New Guinea.

The Harmuth Mask Collection

The Harmuth Mask Collection was given to Okaloosa-Walton Community College in 1998 as a promised gift from Dr. Henning and Anne Harmuth of Destin, Florida.  The Harmuths traveled the world together for nearly forty years, amassing an impressive collection of works from every continent except Antarctica.  The collection represents a variety of mask-making traditions and techniques; the masks range in size from just four inches to over four feet tall, and materials used in their construction are as varied as the faces, themselves.  Wood, papier-maché, plaster, straw and plant fibers, seashells, and metal are commonly employed materials, but some masks challenge traditional Western notions of art-making with their incorporation of hair and teeth (both human and animal).

Different cultures make and utilize masks for different purposes, and the Harmuth Collection exemplifies masking traditions both well understood (like theatrical masks and portraits) and comparatively unknown (apotropaic plague masks or ritual fetish masks).  The Harmuth Masks have attracted attention in the community for years, and recently other collectors have made donations to grow the collection, as well.

The Salvador Dalí Collection

In 1951, the Italian government commissioned Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí to create a series of illustrations for a new, septuacentennial edition of Dante Alighieri’s early 14th century masterpiece, The Divine Comedy.  Though the government later canceled the commission (public outcry was strong over the choice of a Spanish rather than an Italian artist), Dalí continued work on the project, creating 100 watercolor illustrations.  Between 1959 and 1963, 3,600 individual wood blocks had to be carved to translate the original watercolors into prints; each color or line in these works is represented by a single, hand-carved block.  Dalí’s watercolors are lost to history, but the work lives on in the print suite published by Joseph Foret and Jean Estrade.

In 1999, collector Dotty Blacker donated her complete suite of 100 Dalí woodblock prints to Okaloosa-Walton Community College.  Since 1999, other works by Dalí have been donated to complement the woodblocks and grow the collection.

The Marie Snow Greene Collection

In 2006, Okaloosa-Walton College inherited the art collection and many other assets of Marie Snow Greene.  She was a watercolor artist and local art teacher, and had been a longtime student of Emil Holzhauer.  Her generous bequest allowed the college to establish the Marie Snow Greene Visual Arts Building and the Greene Visual Resource Library, and added significantly to the Permanent Collection.

The Greene Collection includes paintings, prints, and drawings by Marie Snow Greene, archival materials, and works of art collected by the artist.  Greene traveled extensively, and her collection of works by others reflects a strong interest in the contemporary arts of Asia.  She documented her travels to Asia and to Central America in her own watercolors, some of which are currently on view. Greene’s legacy continues to support NWF State College through support of student scholarships.

Congressman Robert F. Sikes

MKAC Galleries preserves the historical, personal, and career artifacts of Robert F. Sikes, the longest-serving congressman in the First Congressional District of the State of Florida.