Author and historian Gary Monroe lectures at the Polk Museum of Art on the Highwaymen, 26 Florida-based Afican-American landscape painters who managed to thrive in the Jim Crow South. Consisting of 25 men and 1 woman, these mostly self-taught artists produced a uniquely Florida art movement that is prized by collectors and the public today.

During our Members Reception, Dr. H Alexander Rich spoke about the renowned French artist and sculptor, Aguste Rodin and dove into Rodin’s life-long pursuit of art, his sometimes controversial career, and his monumental contributions and influence on modern sculpture.

Dr. Alexander Rich, in dialogue with Ron and Clark Woodsby, provide an in-depth overview of exhibition The Art of the Highwaymen: From the Woodsby Family Collection.

Featuring more than 50 works in various media on the theme of children and animals in American figurative art, this original exhibition promises to delight the child in all of us.

Learn about Pinderhughes' decades-long career, his rise in the commercial and fine art photography worlds, and the inspirations behind the works in our upcoming original exhibition, Finding Meaning Within: The Photography of John Pinderhughes.

American Impressionism: Treasures from the Daywood Collection features 41 rarely-seen Impressionist paintings originally from the private collection of Arthur Dayton and Ruth Woods Dayton (whose surnames combine to create the collection’s portmanteau name: “Day-Wood”).

This extraordinary exhibition, drawn entirely from the collection of the Reading Public Museum, explores the path to Impressionism through the nineteenth century, and the complex relationship between French Impressionism of the 1870s and 80s, and the American interpretation of the style in the decades that followed.

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

Rebels With a Cause presents outstanding selections of paintings, drawings and sculptures from The Huntsville Museum of Art’s recently acquired Sellars Collection of Art by American Women.

Choreographer and Director of the dance program at Florida Southern College, Erin LaSala, along with students from Florida Southern College’s dance program provide a performance based gallery talk focusing on the artist Edgar Degas.

Works by artist and University of Florida professor Richard Heipp occupy the gray area between the manually produced painting and the digitally reproduced image. They therefore position the viewer at the crossroads of looking and seeing. Heipp describes his paintings as photocentric; they are not intended to be merely based on mechanically produced images, but are instead air-brushed simulations of photographs and scanned objects. At first, these hyperrealistic paintings appear mechanically reproduced, but transform upon closer inspection. They perpetuate that deception between art and audience, pierce the veneer of first impressions, and force us to pause for a new and unexpected interpretation.

The Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College hosted a panel discussion entitled Goya, Picasso & the Heritage of Spain: Exploring Spanish Culture in Florida from 1513 to Today. A distinguished panel of presenters from four institutions collaboratively developed this humanities-focused program to coincide with the Museum's Masters of Spain: Goya & Picasso exhibition on view from March 17-June 17, 2018.

Curator and Director of Galleries & Exhibitions at the Polk Museum of Art H. Alexander Rich, Ph.D. gives the opening lecture for the fall 2018 - 2019 season of exhibitions at the Polk Museum of Art. 

Dr. H. Alexander Rich, Curator and Director of Galleries & Exhibitions, discusses the exhibition, "Renoir: Les Études."

Artist Josephine Sacabo speaks at the opening reception of her exhibition Lessons from the Shadows

Artist Michiko Fujii Fowler speaks at the opening reception for her exhibition Matter Makes Space