Telfair Museum of Art

Opened in 1886, Telfair Museums is the oldest public art museum in the South and the first U.S. museum founded by a woman. The museum features a world-class art collection in the heart of Savannah's National Historic Landmark District and encompasses three sites: the Jepson Center for the Arts, the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, and the Telfair Academy. Two National Historic Landmarks-the Telfair Academy and the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters-showcase the complicated history of 18th- and 19th-century Americans, free and enslaved, who lived and toiled in Savannah. The Jepson Center houses the museum's more than 7,000-work permanent collection, including important works of American Impressionism and the Ashcan School; the largest collection of Kahlil Gibran's visual art in the United States; seminal 20th-century photography by Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, and Bruce Davidson; and essential works by contemporary artists in the museum's Kirk Varnedoe Collection.