FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 20, 2025
CONTACT:
Amber Sesnick, Director of Communications & Marketing
amber.sesnick@unf.edu // 904.620.3224
MOCA Jacksonville Launches Catalog Featuring New Scholarship on Local History
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville (MOCA), a part of Arts UNF at the University of North Florida, announces a Book Launch event for the release of its newest catalog.
On Wednesday, October 29, 2025 from 7 to 9 p.m., MOCA Jacksonville will celebrate the launch of its newest catalog, The Armory South: The 1924 Jacksonville Woman's Club Exhibition Rediscovered, written and researched by guest curator and art historian Dr. P. Scott Brown, Interim Dean of the Hicks Honors College at the University of North Florida. The catalog provides an in-depth view of MOCA's current exhibition by the same name. This event will begin with a presentation by Dr. Brown in MOCA's Theater, followed by a book signing. The event is free to attend on a first come, first served basis. Seats may be reserved by pre-ordering a copy of the catalog.
The Armory South: The 1924 Jacksonville Woman’s Club Exhibition Rediscovered reassembles core works from a forgotten but seminal Modernist exhibition mounted in March 1924 by the Woman’s Club of Jacksonville and the newly founded Jacksonville Fine Arts Society (now MOCA). Planned to mark the beginning of the museum’s second century in 2025, The Armory South tells several related stories of essential importance to the history of women in Modern art, the introduction of Modernism to the American South, and the ideas and relationships shaping American art in the mid-1920s.
ABOUT DR. P. SCOTT BROWN
Peter Scott Brown, PhD, is an associate professor of medieval art history at the University of North Florida. He has a bachelor's degree from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and master's and doctorate degrees in art history from Yale University. Brown is a specialist in medieval art history with particular focuses on Romanesque sculpture and the liturgical and popular receptions of medieval art. His research and publications address topics including the origins of medieval architectural sculpture, architectural sculpture and liturgy, spolia in medieval art, epigraphy in medieval sculpture, the restoration of medieval sculpture, and iconographies of women and the profane. Brown joined the faculty of the University of North Florida in 2005 and teaches widely on the critical interpretation of art and on the art of the Middle Ages and early modern period in courses including art appreciation, medieval art and architecture, Romanesque art, northern Renaissance and northern baroque art, and the apocalypse in art. He has served on MOCA Jacksonville’s Board of Trustees since 2015.
ABOUT MOCA JACKSONVILLE
Located in the heart of historic Downtown, the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville is one of the city’s most significant cultural assets. As the oldest art museum in Northeast Florida and one of the first contemporary art museums to be established in the United States, MOCA is focused on promoting the discovery, knowledge, and advancement of the art, artists, and ideas of our time.
In 1924, a group of visionary local women artists came together to imagine the kind of city they wanted Jacksonville to be — the kind of community they wanted to live in and be a part of. At the core of their vision for a rich, vital, dynamic city were art, culture, and education. Thus, what we now call MOCA Jacksonville was born — first as a series of exhibitions by artists of the day, used as a fundraising tool to support public school education; then as a guild; and later as an art museum and educational leader. In 2009, MOCA became a cultural institute of the University of North Florida and in 2025 the museum became one of only three percent of museums to achieve accreditation through the American Alliance of Museums, the highest national recognition afforded to American museums. More than century later, MOCA’s mission remains focused on the art, artists, and ideas of our time, with a vision that unites education, creativity, and community building in the heart of downtown Jacksonville.
Among the most prominent contemporary art museums in the Southeast, MOCA’s exhibitions and programs set the pace for arts and art-integrated programming on a regional and national stage, with an emphasis on works created from 1960 to the present. Renowned in this community, MOCA casts the spotlight on Jacksonville as a burgeoning, vital arts destination.
For more information including hours of operation, admission prices and upcoming exhibitions and programs, call 904.366.6911 or visit mocajacksonville.unf.edu.
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