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Art

Hot Ticket: Slow down for some highway art

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published June 23, 2005

Starting in the 1950s, roadside stands along the eastern coast of Florida began offering something amazing: landscapes as luscious - and almost as inexpensive - as freshly picked tomatoes and strawberries. The Highwaymen, a group of African-American artists, largely self-taught, combined a realistic style with a romanticized vision of the state to create big, original postcards for tourists to take home as mementos. Soon they were peddling their work to locals as decoration for offices and homes. For years, the landscapes were dismissed by the art world because the artists were black and because the art was formulaic, scenes painted quickly, repetitively, and sold for as little as $10.

Today, Highwaymen art can sell for thousands. It has been the subject of museum exhibitions. And the men (and one woman) still alive are honored as founders of a distinctive style that combines classic and folk art traditions.

An exhibition of Highwaymen art is sponsored by another Florida phenomenon, the City of Imagination in Gulfport. That city has no museum, so City of Imagination, a not-for-profit group, organizes exhibitions concurrently in public venues throughout the town. See "Highway to the Soul: The Disappearing Florida Landscape" through June 30, at the Gulfport Public Library, 5501 28th Ave. S, the Catherine Hickman Theater Gallery, 5501 27th Ave. S, and the Gulfport Casino, 5500 Shore Blvd. S.

Meet Highwaymen artists James Gibson whose untitled painting is shown above, Mary Ann Carroll, Roy McLendon and Isaac Knight on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Art Village Courtyard, 2908 Beach Blvd. All venues are free. For more information, call (727) 384-9064 or go to www.cityofimagination.info

And if you miss the Gulfport exhibition, the art reprises, with additions, beginning July 14 at the Studioat20 in St. Petersburg.

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 10:44:04]