‘The Cummer at 65’ highlights ever-expanding collection, sheds light on the art of acquisition

Sometime in the early 2000s, the staff at the Cummer Museum opened a gift from a curious new benefactor. The Riverside institution had recently been approached by an obscure donor, who’d offered an enticing gift – free, no strings attached – to be added to the museum’s collection: An original work by Pablo Picasso. “As soon as we opened it, we were like, ‘This is wrong,’” remembers current Chief Curator Holly Keris, whose tenure began as a member of the curatorial department back in 2003. Like many famous works, the piece is today remembered nearly as much for the context surrounding its creation as the hands that created it. Unfortunately, it was not the hands of the famed Spanish master but that of an infamous forger, Mark A. Landis, who, over the course of 25 years, had made and donated 100 or so counterfeit works to dozens of arts institutions across the country, before being found out in 2008.    The piece never went on view, according to Keris, nor was it considered for th