The search for answers about a mysteriously rediscovered painting that inspired our groundbreaking Summer 2018 exhibition “The Von Wagner Code” continues in a smaller-scale, long-term installation of the show in our Study Gallery. The damaged, long-lost painting at the center of the exhibit was found on the Florida Southern College campus in 2016 and had been forgotten for over sixty years.

Once thought to date from 17th-century Italy, according to papers believed to be tied to the work at the time of its gift to the College, the painting is now realized to be a version of the famed 19th-century masterpiece “The Chariot Race” by the Hungarian artist Alexander von Wagner. Gifted to the College most likely in the 1940s, this newly-stabilized artwork serves as the visual centerpiece for an installation updated with the most recent discoveries and thematically focused on the surprising history and cultural influence of the painting (including upon the movie “Ben Hur”), the complex story of its vanishing, rediscovery, and eventual reattribution in 2018, and the critical importance of the conservation process in preserving artistic treasures. The twists and turns of the painting’s back-story seem never-ending. Indeed, it was only at the end of the main gallery version of the exhibition that we verified the painting’s true name and artist. Can you help solve The Von Wagner Code?

Over the course of four decades, Dr. Alan and Linda Rich have displayed a passion for helping others, traveling the world and bringing medical care to those in need. With his profession as an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon and hers as an occupational therapist trained to help Alan (who goes more familiarly by Rico) in clinics and in surgeries, the Riches worked together to transform the lives of many in need of critical eye care. While administering to patients in clinics in Papua New Guinea and throughout Africa, Linda and Rico also immersed themselves in the diverse artistic cultures of the countries they visited. Along the way, they acquired a collection of ritual and ceremonial objects that filled their home in Lakeland until Fall 2020, when the Riches donated their full African and Oceanic art collection to the Museum.

The Riches’ generous gift — a large portion of which is on display in the Linda Rich Gallery and which entails artifacts that speak to the close spiritual communion between humans and animals — now fills this dedicated space in the Museum and will be on permanent display with the occasional rotation of objects. Importantly, this gallery functions on two separate but interwoven levels: it offers at once an examination of the spiritual objects themselves and their places within the cultures they come from and a story about the humanitarian work the Riches undertook in the process of acquiring the objects. The two histories are tied together intricately.

Exhibition Resources

Interview with Dr. Alan and Linda Rich

In this interview, Executive Director & Chief Curator of the Polk Museum of Art, Dr. H. Alexander Rich, discusses the exhibition Spirits: Ritual and Ceremonial African and Oceanic Art from the Dr. Alan and Linda Rich Collection with the collectors.

Exhibition Essay

Read a detailed essay by Dr. H. Alexander Rich about the Riches’ medical journeys and the growth of the couple’s vast collection over the course of three decades.

Exhibition Lecture

In this combined lecture, Dr. H. Alexander Rich explains the source of two concurrent exhibits at the Polk Museum of Art. Spirits: Ritual and Ceremonial African and Oceanic Art from the Dr. Alan and Linda Rich Collection in one gallery and Global Art of the 1970s: From the SC Johnson Collection in another. Both exhibits offer a very different viewer experience, but are related via their featuring rarely seen works from private collections. In this lecture, Dr. Rich explains how the exhibits came to fruition.