Museums - Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art

Dr. David A. Cofrin and his wife, Mary Ann Harn Cofrin, made a substantial donation for the founding of the Harn Museum in 1983, stipulating that the facility be named in honor of Mrs. Cofrin’s father, Samuel P. Harn. The funds invested in the museum project by the Cofrins were the largest gift in university history at the time and secured a state of Florida match. With the assistance of the museum’s Founders Society, this gift enabled the Harn to open in 1990.
The museum is currently building a new wing, the Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion. It will add approximately 18,000 square feet to the museum when it opens in 2005. The museum’s collection includes 630 African works, 154 Oceanic works, and 535 pre-Columbian works. These artworks were acquired through purchases, gifts, or transfer from the University of Florida Gallery when the Harn opened in 1990. Objects of note include a Yoruba housepost, Ogun axe, communal Igbo Ikenga, complete Mano mask, Ethiopian Christian orthodox sacra, a group of Zulu earplugs dating from 1920–1980, a complete Mfengu matron costume from the Joan Broster Collection, an Owo ancestral altar and an Igbo men’s communal housepost.