In this first installation of works on long-term loan from the collection of the Woodsby family, we start appropriately at the beginning, with the rise of the Highwaymen and a focus on the two founding figures of this much-loved yet under-sung art movement, Alfred Hair and Harold Newton.

“Pictures must be miraculous; the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended. He is an outsider. The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.” 

— Mark Rothko, “The Romantics Were Prompted,” 1947

Considered the foremost photographer of the international jazz community, Leonard captured an era in music through his now-timeless images, and our collective memories of larger-than-life figures like Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, and Miles Davis, to name a few, have been shaped by his masterful camera lens.

For the late nineteenth century, on the cusp of the abstractive trends of the twentieth, the celebrated master sculptor was Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Rodin’s bronze 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.

— Mark Rothko, “The Romantics Were Prompted,” 1947

For nearly two years, the paintings were under the expert care of conservators in Miami. Now, the paintings — dramatically restored — are unveiled in their new, glorious state in our newly-expanded galleries for the first time.

Marilyn Monroe. Tomato Campbell’s Soup. Andrew Warhola.

What do these three have in common?  They were all re-imagined — and made icons of art history — by Andy Warhol.

We’re So Glad You’re Here is our welcome party for works that are new to us — and to our audiences — and features recent loans and recent acquisitions of artists well-known and under-sung, across media, and many on view at The AGB for the first time. 

As explored in this exhibition of ceramic works from the Museum’s permanent collection, some objects on view have survived for millennia and offer us a connection to peoples across time, both those who produced these works and those who used or displayed them. The works also link us to the history of visual culture, wherein artists use imagery — abstract, representational, or otherwise — to entice our eyes or even to tell stories.

From the 1960s onward, as this exhibition of works from the Museum’s permanent collection seeks to demonstrate, American artists leapt into the void left by a Europe in reconstruction, staking their places in art history in ways American art had never before.

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Step into the world of Frank Lloyd Wright and discover how America’s most celebrated architect spent two decades designing and imagining a campus of the future, now home to Florida Southern College.

Artwork by The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art Summer Camp Students, Ages 8 through 14

Artwork by Polk County Students, Grades K through 2

Artwork by Polk County Middle School Students, Grades 6 through 8

In our galleries this fall, Surreal Scenarios: The Art of Susanne Schuenke invites visitors to explore the imaginative and thought-provoking works of a narrative surrealist painter. Through intricate detail, vibrant color palettes, and layers of allegorical imagery, Schuenke’s paintings blur the lines between conscious and unconscious realms offering visitors a glimpse into the psyche of an artist who dares to imagine beyond the ordinary.

Tracing the trials and tribulations of the legendary Medici dynasty and their influence, power, and patronage over the Italian Renaissance, this evocative exhibition arrives in the United States for the first time, offering visitors to The AGB a rare opportunity to experience over 60 paintings of Renaissance portraiture and artifacts from the Stibbert Museum in Florence, Italy.