The Telfair Academy is a historic mansion at 121 Barnard Street in Savannah, Georgia . It was designed by William Jay and built in 1818, and is one of a small number of Jay's surviving works. It is one of three sites owned by Telfair Museums . Originally a family townhouse belonging to the Telfair family, it became a free art museum in 1886, and thus one of the first 10 art museums in America, and the oldest public art museum in the South. Its first director, elected in 1883, was artist Carl Ludwig Brandt , who spent winters in Savannah. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
8-434: Telfair Academy is located in historic central Savannah, on the west side of Telfair Square . It occupies an entire block, bounded by Barnard, West President, North Jefferson, and West State Streets. It is a two-story masonry structure, built out of brick finished in stucco. Its entrance is a form typical of architect William Jay, with a projecting four-column portico that is accessed via side-facing stairs. The columns are of
16-405: A composite order, and the portico's entablature is continued around the building as a stringcourse. Unlike the symmetrical exterior, the interior of the house is asymmetrical, its unusually shaped rooms including an octagonal drawing room, round-ended dining room, and long drawing room with rounded ends. The building's west wing is its former carriage house, which was adapted in the 1880s as part of
24-590: A green space in London , and marked one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in early Savannah, it was renamed in 1883 to honor the Telfair family. It is the only square honoring a family rather than an individual or an event. The Telfairs included former governor of Georgia Edward Telfair , Congressman Thomas Telfair (Edward Telfair's son), and his daughter Mary Telfair (1791–1875), benefactor of Savannah's Telfair Museum of Art . The square also contains tributes to
32-480: Is located in the second row of the city's five rows of squares, on Barnard Street and West President Street, and was laid out in 1733 as one of the first four squares. It is south of Ellis Square , west of Wright Square and north of Orleans Square . Liberty Square formerly stood to its west but was later paved over. The oldest building on the square is Telfair Academy , at 121 Barnard Street, which dates to 1818–1820. Originally named St. James Square, in honor of
40-581: The Girl Scouts of the USA , founded by Savannahian Juliette Gordon Low , and to the chambered nautilus . Each building below is in one of the eight blocks around the square composed of four residential "tything" blocks and four civic ("trust") blocks, now known as the Oglethorpe Plan . They are listed with construction years where known. Three of the blocks have no notable buildings, according to
48-516: The Georgia Historical Society, which opened the first art museum in the southeastern United States here in 1886. The house was remodeled and expanded to be a museum by architect Detlef Lienau . Telfair Academy features furnished period rooms that highlight the museum's collection of decorative arts and many family furnishings including beautiful 19th and 20th century American and European paintings and sculptures. In front of
56-446: The building are statues of Rembrandt , Rubens , Phidias , Raphael , and Michelangelo (see the link to Commons below). In addition to these works from notable European and American artists, Telfair Academy houses fine and decorative artworks representing Savannah's history and from native Savannah artists. Telfair Square (Savannah, Georgia) Telfair Square is one of the 22 squares of Savannah, Georgia , United States. It
64-456: The building's conversion to a museum, and has fine Adam style woodwork. The house was designed by William Jay and built in 1818 for Alexander Telfair, son of Edward Telfair , one of Georgia's early post-independence governors. The site on which it was built previously housed the official residence of Georgia's colonial royal governors. In 1875 Alexander's sister, Mary , bequeathed the house, including its furnishings and family collections, to
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