“The Artists of Old Florida is the indispensable resource. It is the cornerstone of Florida Art History.” The list of major American artists who have lived and worked in Florida is long indeed from Winslow Homer to Robert Rauschenberg, yet few are ever thought of as Florida artists, and the state’s own homegrown artists have drawn little attention from scholars of American art, in spite of Florida’s historic and still-evolving impact on the nation’s style and self-image. The art history of Florida is today one of the least well understood topics of real importance to American art. For artists, dealers,… Read more »

I have been working on The Artists of Old Florida for over forty years, putting up this website in 2015 with a section I called, Meet the Artists, containing profiles of some of my favorite artists. Certainly Phineas E. Paist is one, especially given the fact that I was able to purchase many years ago from my friend Michael Turbeville, two large murals, Vizcaya, and Mermaids, painted by Paist back in 1930 and 1932. Paist is prominent in my Dictionary of Florida Artists, 1840-1960 but I never published his work here. A recent celebration of Paist’s work in Coral Gables… Read more »

Try to imagine combining Florida art of the 1930’s with music by a contemporary Sarasota, Florida artist. About a year ago I was contacted by Duane Betts, a Sarasota musician, guitarist, and song writer who was coming out with a new album. Betts found my website, loved a painting by Sarasota artist Pierre Rochard, and wanted it for the cover of his new 2023 release, Wild and Precious Life. See www.duanebetts.bandcap.com. Listening to his music while working was for me, sublime, and prompted more research into Rochard. Here is what I found. Pierre Rochard, Sarasota If there was ever a… Read more »

I recently talked to Gary Monroe, the author of The Highwaymen and well known for his work on Florida photography. He suggested I publish his comments on my forty years of work on Florida art on this website. So…with thanks to Gary here is what he said. What Alfred Frankel has accomplished is akin to what artists create. His work is an opus of art research and writing that clarifies Florida art’s origins. Frankel’s pioneering contribution established a baseline from which we can understand the development of painting in Florida. For more than thirty years, Frankel has scoured the libraries… Read more »

Could this portrait of Osceola, sold as “attributed to George Catlin,” be from his “Cartoon Collection” and actually painted by the master himself? Read on. George Catlin famous for his portraits of North American Indians, arrived in Pensacola in February 1838. He had been on the trail, painting and 85 documenting the life of American Indians, since 1832. Catlin had just come from Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where he met and painted portraits of the Seminole Indian leaders Osceola, Micanope, Yehowlogee and Neamathla. He completes the painting shortly before the famous chief died, of a throat infection and, in Catlin’s… Read more »

I just got this painting of Tahiti Beach by a Minnesota professor of Entomology who had family in Coral Gables and visited often. I think if could use a cleaning, it’s 96 years old, but excited at the find, wanted to get it here. I’ll repost a cleaned picture later. There are people on the beach and Miami Beach in the distance. For more on the artist go to Meet the Artists or just use Search. Frederick L. Washburn, Tahiti Beach, Coral Gables, 1926. Oil on canvas, 18 by 20 inches with exhibit label from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts… Read more »

When I moved back to Florida in 1980, I knew nothing about art in Florida. A year or two later I bought my first Florida painting by Sam Stoltz. In a pecky cypress frame, it depicted a flamingo and egret flying side by side over the Everglades. I hung It on a blank white wall in my condo on Pass a Grille. As my interest in Florida art grew, I began to hear from antique and art dealers about the Vickers and their collection of Florida art. One day I opened The Magazine Antiques and found an article reviewing the… Read more »

It’s been six years since I opened this website to introduce The Artists of Old Florida to the public. Two years ago, I was still working in the ER at Bay Pines VA Hospital in St. Petersburg, dividing my time between medicine and research on The Artists. Covid and the Pandemic came along and, at the age of 81, believing the risks to me in remaining in the ER were too great, I retired, telling my colleagues that now I could devote full time to The Artists of Old Florida. And that’s just what I’ve been doing, adding to a… Read more »

If there were two people, a married couple, in the history of Florida art that epitomized a life of romance and dedication to the highest principles of creative art, it was George Snow Hill and his wife Polly Knipp Hill. The couple, in my mind, represent the very essence of what living a life in art means. George was likely Florida’s finest muralist, Polly its most prolific and sensitive etcher of Florida and the American scene. Their work can easily be found on the internet. Polly had a definitive exhibit at the University of Georgia in 2012, twenty-three years after… Read more »