Rodin’s sculptures not only revived for a new century the expressive and naturalistic styles of antiquity, using ancient Greek sculptors’ medium of choice, but also propelled figurative sculpture into the modern age with emotion and pathos never seen before in the sculpted form.

The Florida Highwaymen occupy an unusual and fascinating space in the history of art. When one mentions “the art of the Highwaymen” to many Floridians, their ears perk up and their eyes brighten, with a glowing and knowing fondness for homegrown art. When you mention “the art of the Highwaymen” to non-Floridians, most look at you with little or no recognition of what you are talking about.

A star of the New York art world, John Pinderhughes (b. 1946) has established himself over the past half-century as the ultimate observer and narrator of the communities all around him. This Fall, the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College presents an original, extraordinary retrospective exhibition, years in the making, showcasing Pinderhughes’ broad reportorial eye and his ability to find meaning and value in everything — and every person — he photographs.

This Fall, the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College is partnering with the Lakeland Symphony Orchestra (LSO) for a one-of-a-kind exhibition that promises to delight art and music lovers alike, transporting gallery visitors visually and aurally, engaging their eyes and their ears.

This Fall, the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College presents audiences with an incomparable peek not merely into the incredible story of Impressionism’s rise in the United States but also into the influential world of private collecting.

Josephine Sacabo’s art is both of our time and embedded deeply in a time past. She is an acclaimed, New Orleans-based contemporary photographer whose body of work seems infused with a powerful nostalgia for the non-digital photographic forms and techniques of photography’s nascent years as an artistic medium in the previous two centuries.

“Have you ever imagined what it would have been like to live in Paris of the 1890s? Would you have spent your evenings in Montmartre, watching cancan dancers at the Moulin Rouge? Would you have mingled with the likes of Vincent van Gogh or Paul Cézanne? What would it have been like to be in the center of the art world at the brink of a new century?”

Have you ever wondered about what is going on in a painting? What that daydreaming figure is thinking about? What story the artist is trying to tell? Have you ever spun an elaborate tale or envisioned what that conversation might be between those two very angry-looking people across a room?

“Through A Brush With HerStory, my goal is to resurrect these artists from the shadows of history and the depths of dusty archives. Obstacles of the day — whether it was lack of training, family obligations, or the restraints placed by society upon their practice of painting — did not stand in the way of their craft. They were not the shining stars of art but were the quiet undercurrent that existed with little or no forum to rise above the premier art establishments of the era.”

The exhibition delves deeply into the art, history, and culture of the Netherlands in the 17th century, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement for the Dutch people. In what was then already called a Golden Age, the Netherlands was a world power whose military fleet was growing and where trade, science, and the arts flourished as never before.

This exclusive exhibition features works selected from the private collection of the SC Johnson Company, most of which have never before traveled outside The Council House, the company’s international conference center in Racine, Wisconsin. Featuring works in all media and crossing all stylistic and geographic boundaries, this Polk Museum original exhibition offers audiences a deep dive into rarely seen art from one of the most consequential decades in art history.

This exhibition is 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.

We all know a Picasso when we see one. We can recognize a Pollock drip painting from far across a gallery. We know a Vermeer from a mile away. But what about the spaces in which these works were produced? Have you ever wondered where the magic happens?  Where art history is literally made?

Sun + Light is a collection of works from the series Everyone Loves the Sunshine by contemporary visual artist Charles Edward Williams. The art in the Sun + Light juxtaposes Williams’ own personal encounters, past and present, with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th to 18th Centuries features more than thirty works from medieval Bibles, prayer books, psalters, books of hours, choir books, missals, breviaries, and lectionaries as well as a selection of rare Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts.

Edgar Degas is one of the most familiar “name” artists in the entire history of art — and, this winter, the Polk Museum is excited to bring Degas to Lakeland in a wide-ranging exhibition of privately-owned works entitled Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist.

Ken Rollins, President of Rollins Fine Art and PMA Director (1981-1994), explores the life and inspiration of artist William Schaaf.

This September, Chagall arrives at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College.

This September, the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College proudly presents The Art of Romaine Brooks, a retrospective exhibition of a remarkable and under-acknowledged 20th century American artist.

Read more on the exhibition, Double Vision: Photocentric Paintings by Richard Heipp.

Read more on the exhibition, Lorrie Goulet: Seventy Years Carving.

Read more on the exhibition, The Von Wagner Code.

In keeping with our mission to offer incomparable world-class art experiences for the community, this exhibition brings to Polk County a rare showcase of work by two of the greatest Spanish painters of all time. 

In most official art historical accounts of American art, it is not until the 1940s that American art found and identifiable home-grown style with the advent of Abstract Expressionism.

Long a household name, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is considered to be one of the great nineteenth-century masters.

Faces in the Crowd is the second in a series of exhibitions showcasing the latest acquisitions of figurative American art in the collection of the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College (FSC).

The current exhibition, "Faces in the Crowd," is composed of a selection of the newest collection of Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College’s latest acquisitions of figurative American art. In order to display many of the works, our curatorial team choose to use the salon style hang.  But what is the origin of the salon style hang? 

Rembrandt van Rijn founded the most influential Academy that ever existed in the Dutch Republic (1581-1795), training dozens of painters to work in the “Rembrandtesque” manner.

The Figure in American Art offers but a mere introduction to the Museum’s newest works in the permanent collection.

Carlton Ward’s work is part of a long history of photographers focused on raising awareness about and influencing attitudes toward issues of conservation.