Tallahassee collectors' Icelandic gems take spotlight in 'Land of Fire and Ice'
Let me tell you a story about 10 amazing men. One is a perennial student. Another a biologist. There is the environmentalist. The lawyer. An art scholar. And the historian. There is also the collector, the traveler, a scholarly humanist, and a father of eight. They all live in the same house and are married to the same woman. And they all answer to the name, Segundo J. Fernandez.
The North Florida region will have an opportunity to not only meet Fernandez and hear him speak, but also to come under the electric enthusiasm of a Renaissance man who wants to share with you his world-spanning knowledge of art — and everything that leads to and from it.
The Gadsden Arts Center and Museum in Quincy will open its newest exhibition, “Twentieth-Century Painting in Iceland: Art from the Land of Fire and Ice” on Friday, Oct. 6. Over 40 pieces from Segundo and Bobbie Fernandez’ family collection of Icelandic art will be on loan to the museum with an opening and “Conversation” with Fernandez scheduled from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12.
Considering the focus Fernandez has brought to each of his endeavors, it would seem that the Tallahassee resident born in Havana, Cuba, clearly qualifies as a modern-day Renaissance man.
Thrill of museums
The Democrat had the opportunity to chat with Fernandez at his home, a self-designed brick structure which he points out was added on to, room by room as not only his art collections grew, but his family as well.
He is the father of eight children, four of whom the widowed attorney brought into his second marriage — which produced four more with art historian, Bobbie Fernandez. Sitting at his kitchen table on a sunny Sunday, the immaculately groomed Fernandez takes a moment to look back to 1960 when his travel-agent father and mother arrived with their 9-year-old son in Miami, fleeing the restrictions of a Castro-led Cuba.
“My father had opened a branch travel agency in Miami as a kind of life boat in case we needed to leave Cuba,” Fernandez said. His mother was a classical pianist and both parents exposed young Segundo to travel and to what for him was the “thrill” of museums. “I remember at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City I didn’t want to leave when everyone was ready to go. Even then I think I’d begun to collect art… a tiny Egyptian mouse… which I sadly later learned was only a replica!”
History of the work fascinates
As he grew older, Segundo expanded his interest in acquisitions. “I collected sea shells, leaves, acorns, stamps,” delving deep into the background and historical context of each item. And that seems the propellant in his life-long pursuit of creating a collection.
“It’s not about a following a trend, or owning something for its value, it’s about what I call “connoisseurship.” The root of the French word here means “knowledge.” Fernandez says he needs to develop a kind of relationship with a piece, “…to hold it, smell it, examine it in detail. I want to know the culture, and the world events during which the piece was made. The history surrounding the piece fascinates me as much as the piece itself.”
He’d begun his academic studies in chemistry, later expanding to biology, and when he shifted from science to earn his law degree, added on a post-graduate degree in marine and coastal environmental law. Fernandez served as both Assistant and Deputy General Counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation. Currently, he is in private practice with Oertel, Fernandez, Bryant & Atkinson in Tallahassee.
Oh, but there was a “detour” along the way.
Collecting degrees along the way
Even as he worked as an attorney, Fernandez, tucked in a Masters and Ph.D. degree from FSU in Art History. “My daughter made me wait until she’d finished her own Ph.D. at Emory in the same subject before I began mine,” he laughs. But his FSU student-tenure produced something even more positive than an advanced degree. “It was there that I met my wife, Bobbie, a Masters degree art history student at the time.” Today, Bobbie Fernandez teaches at Tallahassee Community College and collects 17th century Jacobian furniture.
But now it is time for the “museum tour” of Fernandez’ home to begin. Each of the rooms is devoted to a painter, a time period, or a style of art, all displayed within vaguely British architectural lines — with coffered or beamed ceilings, black and white checkered marble flooring, and lots and lots of French doors.
One room is devoted to art from Asia, another room holds “high art” from the continent, and elsewhere you come across the bow of a dug-out canoe bow with a carved crocodile from Papua-New Guinea. Fernandez has stories to go with each piece, from the vegetable dyes used on the Asian scrolls to the cultural significance of the croc and the bird atop its head.
“I believe that humans are the only creatures who take the time and effort to create things with no utilitarian purpose,” he says. The painted vase, the sculpted hand, a depiction of a brilliant sunset cannot be eaten, nor give shelter. Yet every civilization creates art. Fernandez says that he believes, “therein lies the divine.” Art, he says, is to him, “spiritual.”
Captivated by Iceland
The tour continues through a room devoted to Cuban art, for which Fernandez has curated an exhibit at the FSU Museum of Art, and another room, with paintings hung floor to ceiling of British landscapes, which were part of his loaned exhibit to Brenau University in Georgia. Other pieces of his collection have been on display at the Harn, the Appleton, and at Florida State exhibitions.
And though Segundo Fernandez and his wife are normally anonymous lenders, he says that the exhibition at the Gadsden Museum of Art will be the first time they will show as the Fernandez Family.
“From the first time we went to Iceland eight years ago, and all five times since, we have been captivated not only by the landscapes, but by the people and their culture.” He adds that Iceland was devoid of human life until only about 1200 years ago and he is animated by the dynamism that remains intact there after a relatively short period of civilization. Bobbie Fernandez has written the explanatory wall texts accompanying each painting.
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Grace Robinson, the Executive Director of the Gadsden Arts Center and Museum, is eagerly awaiting the show’s opening. Leading a group of 20 on a museum trip to Iceland in September, she says she knows the show will be inspirational to many, and she is delighted the Fernandez family will share their own vast knowledge of the country and its culture with Floridians.
If you go
What: “Twentieth-Century Painting in Iceland: Art from the Land of Fire and Ice,” exhibition
When: Oct. 6-Dec. 16; opening celebration from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12; presentation by guest curator Segundo at 5:30 p.m.
Where: Gadsden Arts Center and Museum, 13 N. Madison St., Quincy
Details: For more information, visit gadsdenarts.org
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee collection part of 'Land of Fire and Ice' at Gadsden Arts
