Cheekwood is a historic estate on the western edge of Nashville, Tennessee that houses the Cheekwood Estate & Gardens. Formerly the residence of Nashville's Cheek family, the

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

-style mansion was opened as a botanical garden and art museum in 1960.

History

Christopher Cheek founded a wholesale

grocery A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, an ...

business in Nashville in the 1880s. His son, Leslie Cheek, joined him as a partner, and by 1915 was president of the family-owned company. Leslie's wife, Mabel Wood, was a member of a prominent Clarksville, Tennessee, family. Meanwhile,

Joel Owsley Cheek Joel Owsley Cheek (December 8, 1852 - December 14, 1935) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Maxwell House coffee brand. Early life Cheek was born on December 8, 1852 in Burkesville, Kentucky. He attended Tra ...

, Leslie's cousin, had developed an acclaimed blend of coffee that was marketed through Nashville's finest hotel, the Maxwell House Hotel. Cheek's extended family, including Leslie and Mabel Cheek, were investors. In 1928, the Postum Cereals Company (now General Foods) purchased Maxwell House's parent company, Cheek-Neal Coffee, for more than $40 million. After the sale of the family business, Leslie Cheek bought of woodland in West Nashville for a country estate. He hired

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

residential and landscape architect

Bryant Fleming Bryant Fleming (July 19, 1877 – September 19, 1946) was an American architect and landscape architect. Early life Fleming was born on July 19, 1877 in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1901, where he studied horticulture ...

to design the house and gardens, and gave him full control over every detail of the project, including interior furnishings. The resulting limestone mansion and extensive formal gardens were completed in 1932. The estate design was inspired by the grand English manors of the 18th century. Leslie Cheek died just two years after moving into the mansion. Mabel Cheek and their daughter, Huldah Cheek Sharp, lived at Cheekwood until the 1950s, when Huldah Sharp and her husband offered the property as a site for a botanical garden and art museum. The

Exchange Club The National Exchange Club – a service organization with 700 clubs and more than 21,000 members throughout the United States and Puerto Rico – celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011. Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Michigan, by businessmen who w ...

of Nashville, the Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee and other civic groups led the redevelopment of the property aided by funds raised from the sale of the former building of the defunct Nashville Museum of Art. The new Cheekwood museum opened in 1960.

Art museum

Cheekwood's art collection was founded in 1959 upon the holdings of the former

Nashville Museum of Art Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The core holdings include broad collections of American art; American and British decorative arts; contemporary art, especially outdoor sculpture acquired for the Woodland Sculpture Trail. Cheekwood's American art collection includes 600 paintings and 5,000 prints, drawings and photographs. The collection, assembled in the 1980s and early 1990s through a multimillion-dollar bequest, spans the history of American art. Its strength centers on The Eight. Other strengths include the world's largest collection of sculptures of

William Edmondson William Edmondson (c. 1874–1951) was the first African-American folk art sculptor to be given a one-person show exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (1937). Biography Edmondson was born sometime in December 1874 on the Compt ...

, photographs by

Louise Dahl-Wolfe Louise Dahl-Wolfe (November 19, 1895 – December 11, 1989) was an American photographer. She is known primarily for her work for ''Harper's Bazaar'', in association with fashion editor Diana Vreeland. Background Louise Emma Augusta Dahl was bor ...

, and a vast variety of post- Second World War prints. Recently, the Museum has pursued a consciously focused acquisition process, having added paintings by James Hamilton, William Bradford, and new contemporary sculpture for the Trail. The core holdings of the decorative arts collection include the third-largest Worcester porcelain in the United States, and a 650-piece silver collection, spanning the 18th-20th centuries. The Cheek Mansion is itself considered part of the collection. A year-long renovation, completed in June 2017, restored much of the original building, which revealed authentic features (wood and marble floors that had been carpeted), and conserved historical architectural motifs, such as the illusionist murals that line the main corridor. The Contemporary Art collection, housed in the galleries created out of the estate's original garage and stables, is small but of high quality, including paintings by Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol,

Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York C ...

, Red Grooms, and

Marylyn Dintenfass Marylyn Dintenfass (born 1943) is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. She is primarily known for her oil paintings, which use a dynamic color palette and lexicon of gestural imagery to explore dualities in the human experience and eve ...

. Additionally, seven small galleries were created in the old horse stable stalls to enable Cheekwood to display installation art. The Ann & Monroe Carell Jr. Family Sculpture Trail, a collection of ten sculptures by international artists, extends the contemporary art collection into nature, focusing on a kind of intimate, outdoor art not commonly found in American museums.

Botanical garden

Extending across the grounds from the Museum of Art, the Botanical Garden encompasses the entire site with an emphasis on display, education, and study. The plant collections include boxwood,

conifer Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...

crape myrtle ''Lagerstroemia'' (), commonly known as crape myrtle (also spelled crepe myrtle or crêpe myrtle), is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia ...

, daffodil,

daylily A daylily or day lily is a flowering plant in the genus ''Hemerocallis'' , a member of the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae. Despite the common name, it is not in fact a lily. Gardening enthusiasts and horticulturists have long ...

, dogwood, fern,

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

, holly, hosta, hydrangea, Japanese maple, magnolia, Southeastern US natives,

redbud ''Cercis'' is a genus of about 10 species in the subfamily Cercidoideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to warm temperate regions. It contains small deciduous trees or large shrubs commonly known as redbuds. They are characterised by simpl ...

, and trillium.

Other attractions

In addition to the Museum and the Botanical Garden, Cheekwood operates two gift shops, and a restaurant called the Cafe 1929 which is located in the Frist Learning Center.

References

External links