Last Thursday I remembered that the art exhibit I really wanted to see would be closing this weekend. I talked Mike into going to Lakeland, FL with me too see some art! Sure, it was almost an hour and a half drive each way, but not too far away. And a nice and warm day down here in Florida!
We first went to the exhibit, The Art of Romaine Brooks, at the Polk Museum of Art. They also had a nice presentation of some works by Marc Chagall. Some of you who know me should remember that I have always loved Art Deco and artists in that timeframe. Also, grey happens to be my favorite color (still)! Romain Brooks was a woman who lived in Paris and studied painting. Many of the pieces shown are from the 1910s to the 1930s. She commonly uses grey (Yay!) and follows her own artistic preferences. This show was launched by the Smithsonian in 20016. She had donated these works to her home country for our archives at the Smithsonian. Their show outline shares some details about the artist, along with an image gallery with most of the paintings viewed. You will see that her portraits are straight-forward, but also very intriguing. If you are interested in learning some more about Romain Brooks, check out her Wikipedia page.
After visiting the museum, we headed over to the Florida Southern College to view the largest amount of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture in one site — 12 of 18 buildings he designed were built. His area is called the Child of the Sun. This name comes from a quotation from Mr. Wright: to create college buildings that “grow out of the ground and into the light, a child of the sun.”
We walked around a lot, not having purchased any of the interior tours. (It was an end of semester day, and we saw lots of students taking tests.) Just seeing the buildings from the exterior was amazing. It is truly a large lot, and Mr. Wright laid the buildings out in his particular manner. They even have wonderfully covered walkways between the college’s buildings. We will be saving up to return for a nice interior tour of these marvelous buildings. The sad part of visiting is seeing some of the deterioration. I need to do some research to see what they are doing to keep these special buildings alive. If you would like to see more about Mr. Wright and his architecture, please visit his site.
After viewing a lot of art, we went to the downtown area of Lakeland to have a late lunch. We found a great Louisiana-style restaurant, and we got to meet some wonderful locals. Apparently, it was also a community party, so we got to see snow in Florida!!
And here are just some of the many photos I took! Enjoy! (PS – Click on a photo to see them full-scale.)
