Category: Current Exhibitions

Paintings from Tampa Bay Collections

On view May 15, 2025 – February 1, 2026

In the 1880s, Impressionism made its way to America from Europe and became a national style of painting in the United States that remains widely beloved to this day. With roots in France, Impressionism launched in 1874 with an avant-garde exhibition by Parisian painters—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and others—who challenged traditional painting styles of the time. Although Impressionism in France experienced a period of popularity for only a decade, it captivated young American artists abroad who were inspired by the painters’ ability to capture light and color through observation and plein air painting.

In the 19th-century, Paris was the center of the art world and artists flocked to the city to study art in its esteemed academies and famous museums. The École des Beaux-Arts, the oldest and most admired art academy in France, was highly selective of its students. Many Americans studied at Académie Julian where the language requirement was less strict and more significantly, open to accepting female artists. American painters were initially bewildered by and then beguiled by the Impressionist movement. They adapted to this new direction and in turn inspired other artists, art dealers, and American collectors, including Industrialists Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon, to embrace Impressionist art. Artists featured in American Gaze, such as Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, and Theodore Robinson, helped introduce this new approach to painting to American audiences.

The modern age was upon America. Like their European counterparts, the American Impressionists were inspired by the philosophy that painting what they knew and what they experienced firsthand was more truthful and thus more meaningful. Rather than capturing the past or historical moments on canvas, the artists were more interested in painting fleeting moments in the untouched landscape and the modernization of cities in the young nation. Artist colonies on the eastern seaboard, such as Shinnecock Hills in Long Island, founded by William Merrit Chase, and Childe Hassam, who taught off the New Hampshire coast, created a stronghold for Impressionism in the United States.

American Impressionism developed its own identity—one deeply intertwined with the country’s social, cultural, and historical shifts. American Gaze: Impressionism, Paintings from Tampa Bay Collections celebrates the contributions of American Impressionists from the late 1800s to the 1930s, a period of great transformation in the United States. The exhibition features six sections with over 60 paintings on view: Impression, French Influencers; Light Shifts; Figures and Flora; Countryside; and American Gaze. Together, the paintings highlight how American Impressionists captured the beauty of their surroundings and reveals a broader story of artistic evolution in the United States.

Community Sponsor:

Anonymous Foundation

Exhibition Sponsor:

Supporting Sponsor:

Anderson Bucklew Charitable Foundation

The Etruscans are a fascinating ancient Italian people about whom much remains a mystery. They inhabited an area of central Italy – present-day Tuscany and beyond – immediately north of Latium where the city Rome later rose to power. Emerging from the Iron Age “Villanovan” culture (ca. 900-700 ʙᴄᴇ), the Etruscans reached their zenith in the second quarter of the first millennium ʙᴄᴇ. Over the centuries, Etruscan art and culture retained its distinct identity. Yet, they were variously influenced by Celtic and Central European, Roman and Greek, Punic and Phoenician civilizations. The Etruscans were gradually subsumed by Rome over the course of a long process of acculturation (ca. 5th-1st cent. ʙᴄᴇ).

The permanent antiquities collection of the Tampa Museum of Art holds some 70 Etruscan objects covering a period of about 750 years (ca. 9th-1st cent. ʙᴄᴇ). This ensemble, the largest public collection of its kinds in the southeastern United States, has never been displayed together before. Comprising jewelry and cosmetics, bronze statuettes and metalware, terracotta figurines and earthenware, including cinerary urns, these objects illustrate aspects of everyday life and death, pottery production, myth and religion. The presentation of the Etruscan Collection is part of a series of long-term exhibitions highlighting the Museum’s permanent collection.

What little is known about the ancient Etruscans inhabiting central Italy and beyond is largely due to their interactions with the Romans. No historical accounts of their own have come down to us. Their language can be deciphered and is partially understood, but its origin remains uncertain. Etruscan is considered a Paleo-European Language, predating and thus unrelated to Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin. The Iron Age “Villanovan” culture (ca. 900-700 ʙᴄᴇ), first discovered in the north Italian town of Villanova near Bologna, is now considered the earliest appearance of a distinct Etruscan culture. The Etruscan city-states in central Italy reached their pinnacle in the Archaic and Classical periods (ca. 700-350 ʙᴄᴇ), after which the Etruscans were gradually acculturated by the growing power of Rome.

Etruscan states maintained contact and were variously influenced by surrounding civilizations in central and southern Europe as well as northern Africa, particularly Greece and Rome, Carthage and Egypt. Gaining their wealth through international copper and iron trade, independent city states joined into an Etruscan federation. The Etruscan nobility participated in an elite culture of exchange, involving lavish banquets and gift-giving, connecting Etruria to south Italy and the Greek world. The elite’s wealth was displayed in rich jewelry; their military power was reflected in impressive armor. Etruscan art and artifacts include bronze and terracotta statues, architecture and ornaments, metalware and glossy black-slip ceramics. Their culture is best known today from surviving tombs and sanctuaries. Tombs held human-form coffins or ash urns, conveying a prominent position of noblewomen. Elaborate frescoes adorned tomb walls, depicting mythology, banquets, and daily life, emphasizing the Etruscans’ belief in the afterlife and the importance of commemorating the departed. Etruscan pantheon gradually incorporated elements of Greek, Roman, and other influences. Priests played a significant role in interpreting the will of the gods through divination.

When it comes to art, the Rice Family’s first visit to Cuba in 2013 was as memorable as it was pivotal to their vocation as collectors. Cuban art became a gateway to embrace the heart and mind of a fascinating culture and its people. Collecting was no longer a hobby, but a passion, and over time the Rices would fall completely “under the spell” of Cuban art. For a decade, Susie and Mitchell’s Cuban Art Collection has been growing consistently in scope and quality, now treasuring the works of more than seventy artists from different generations and aesthetics.

The exhibition deviates from a traditional historical narrative and is presented as a compass rather than a timeline―a map for a journey through the varying themes, genres, and styles that align with the sensibilities of two generations of collectors in the Rice family. This first of six sections, The Language of Forms and the Forms of Language includes early works that demonstrate an affinity for abstraction among some Cuban pioneers of modernism in the late 1940s. The works in The Prophet’s Dream delineate both political and social awareness and the critical communal identity present in Cuban art through generations subsequent to the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Cuba is described as an island-nation, a term that refers not only to its physical and geographic properties―the cluster of islands, islets and keys that form the biggest archipelago in the Antilles―but also the people who inhabit it. The works in The Great Journey: Archives express the trauma of national exile and the artists’ relationship to Cuba. The section Sensory Landscapes of Memory and Desire delineates the more hedonistic and whimsical imagery that percolates through Cuban contemporary art. These works exude eroticism, playfulness, intimate longings, and explorations into the depths of memory.

The Musings of Narcissus: Through the Looking Glass and What the Artist Found There, the fifth thematic section, examines a range of self-referential works of art and offers a glimpse into the process and philosophy of Cuban artists exploring self-representation and the body. Lastly, The Spirit of the Real, the Reality of the Spirit presents work born of the artists’ spiritual experiences. In most of the works in this section, mythological and symbolic elements from African-Cuban religions underlie or are at the foreground of both the narrative and the visual structure of the artworks.

Under the Spell of the Palm Tree: The Rice Collection of Cuban Art features the work of:

Abel Barroso
Adrián Fernandez
Alberto Lago
Alex Hernández
Alexi Torres
Alfredo Sosabravo
Ángel Ramírez & Jacqueline Maggi
Antonio Vidal
Belkis Ayón
Carlos Enríquez
Carlos Garaicoa
Cundo Bermúdez
Duo Ponjuán (René Francisco & Eduardo Ponjuán)

Emilio Sánchez
Enrique Riverón
Ernesto Javier Fernández
Ernesto Leal
Esterio Segura
Frank Mujica
Glenda León
Inti Hernández
Iván Capote
Jesús Hernández-Güero
Jorge Lavoy
José Alberto Figueroa
José Ángel Toirac
José Ángel Vincench

José Bedia
José Rosabal
Juan Roberto Diago Querol
Kádir López
Lázaro Saavedra
Liset Castillo
Mabel Poblet
Manuel Mendive
Marco Castillo
Mario Carreño
Pedro de Oraá
Pedro Pablo Oliva
Rafael Soriano

René Francisco Rodríguez
Rene Portocarrero
Reynier Leyva Novo (Chino Novo)
Ricardo Miguel Hernández
Roberto Diago
Roberto Fabelo
Salvador Corratgé
Sandra Ramos
Tania Bruguera
Tomás Sánchez
Waldo Díaz-Balart
Wifredo Lam

The Tampa Museum of Art’s inaugural multi-media exhibition in the Bronson Thayer Gallery celebrates two female trailblazers: scientist Marie Curie (Polish-French, 1876-1934) and artist Jennifer Steinkamp (American, b. 1958). Curie remains the only woman awarded two Nobel Prizes for her groundbreaking scientific discoveries and research. Born nearly a century later, Steinkamp is internationally recognized for her monumental installations that unite art with technology. Pioneers in their respective disciplines  – science and art  – the exhibition Jennifer Steinkamp: Madame Curie highlights the remarkable work of both women. This presentation also launches the Museum’s new media and immersive art initiative, a milestone in our institution’s programming history.

Like Marie Curie, Steinkamp has long been inspired by science and how science transforms humanity. For over 30 years, she has been making site-specific art exploring the relationship between nature, power, and gender. With advances in technology and her affinity for design and coding, Steinkamp viewed the computer as a tool to make art. Madame Curie, commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2011, was informed by Steinkamp’s investigations into the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station, a decommissioned power plant located halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Her research inevitably led her to Marie Curie’s trailblazing work in physics and chemistry, specifically Curie’s revolutionary research on radioactivity and the discovery of polonium and radium.

While reading Curie’s biography, authored by the scientist’s daughter Eve Curie, Steinkamp noticed flowers and gardening were mentioned throughout the book—a passion that coincided with her love of science. Steinkamp created animation renderings of over 40 flowers mentioned in Curie’s biography. In Steinkamp’s Madame Curie, billowing stems of apple blossoms, daisies, eucalyptus, passion flowers, periwinkle, and wisteria float, tumble, and cascade across the gallery’s walls. The layered blooms create the perception of infinite space and continuous time. For the Tampa Museum of Art’s exhibition of Madame Curie, Steinkamp created a version of the animation specific to the gallery’s architecture. In this immersive installation, Steinkamp emphasizes the beauty of nature and how it brought Curie a sense of wonderment and joy throughout her life.

In a recent interview, artist Vaughn Spann (American, b. 1992) remarked, “Abstraction maps reality.” The four monumental paintings on view, all from the series Marked Men, represent the convergence of abstraction and figuration in Spann’s art. Rendered as a grid, each panel features a prominent ‘X’ at the center of the composition. Vibrant paint—from sapphire to sky blue, crimson red, fire orange, and marigold yellow, to blush pink and emerald green—emphasize Spann’s lattice of kaleidoscopic color. A combination of pigment and housepaint, the artist works the surface of the painting on the floor of his studio, building texture withing the picture plane, and then completes the work upright on the wall.

The X serves as a stand-in for the body and represents both personal and collective experiences. Created in a variety of hues and form, the X ranges from prominently visible to camouflaged or hidden. In Spann’s paintings, the X serves as a portrait of the everyman who has been targeted in racial profiling. It reflects self as well as the unknown or anonymous person. In discussing the inspiration for the Marked Men series, Spann shared: “I was stopped and frisked for the first time while I was an undergrad student…I was walking home from studying at a friend’s house. Cops pulled me over. Four other cop cars came by. They put me against a gate, and my hands are up, split. That same gesture echoes the X. And, for me, that’s such a symbolic form, and so powerful to this contemporary moment.”

Spann’s paintings illustrate a breadth of art historical and contemporary art influences, from the colorful abstract paintings by Stanley Whitney and Brice Marden’s lyrical yet minimal canvases, to Pop art icon Andy Warhol. Although each painter offers a uniquely different approach to art making, the grid and notion of repetition or seriality unites the artists. Both a formal and narrative choice, the containment of the grid heightens the image’s meaning or allegory. In discussing his grid paintings, Whitney once remarked, “There is freedom in setting limits for one self.” Spann, greatly inspired by Whitney, builds on this sentiment and adds, “…with freedom comes responsibility.” In this gallery, Spann’s Marked Men series signifies the artist’s dedication to social activism while paying homage to art history.

Born in Orlando, Florida, Vaughn Spann received his BFA in studio art from Rutgers State University and earned his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University’s School of Art. His art has been exhibited across the globe, with exhibitions mounted at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Rubell Museum. Spann’s work resides in the collections of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and others.

Jaume Plensa is an internationally acclaimed artist who has exhibited his sculptures in museums all over the world. In locations as diverse as Seoul, Paris, Chicago, Bordeaux and London, Plensa’s monumental sculptures have reaffirmed the power of art to transform a public space into a community. This is aptly demonstrated in his first major commission in the United States, The Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park (2004). Two 11-story LED towers face each other across a thin pool of water, with images of a changing and diverse city reflected in the water, a continuously cycling metaphor for the life of a city.

The Crown Fountain was the beginning of Plensa’s investigation of the portrait via photography and form. This led to works like Laura with Bun. At more than 23 feet tall, this artwork expresses both individual and universal traits at great scale, inviting viewers to consider multiple aspects of beauty and human nature. Like all of his large-scale female portrait heads, Laura has her eyes closed, as if looking within. In speaking about these works, Plensa has said, “Look into yourself. My piece is a mirror to reflect your image, so you can think about your own interior—how much beauty we have inside of ourselves.”

Laura with Bun initially came to Tampa as part of the 2016 exhibition Jaume Plensa: Human Landscape. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous gift and the overwhelming popular support of nearly 100 donors, the Museum has committed to purchase the sculpture for our permanent collection. For their support of this purchase, we are most grateful to:

Anonymous

Celia & Jim Ferman

The Williams Family

Penny & Jeff Vinik

Mark Anderson & Keith Bucklew

Maureen & Douglas Cohn

Stephen & Marsha Dickey

Sara Golding Scher & David Scher

Allison, Robby, Dallas, & Adelaide Adams

Carlton Fields

Blake & Tate Casper

PNC Bank

Susie & Mitchell Rice in honor of Michael Tomor

Jeff Tucker & Len Kizner

FRIENDS of the Museum

And all the Friends of Laura:

Burton N. Mulford & R. Dean Hamric

Mary Alice McClendon

Sara & Mort Richter

Tampa Downtown Partnership

Thomas Hochhausler & Sung Lee

Julianne McKeel

Sharmila & Vivek Seth

Ellen & Don Stichter

Mrs. John Brabson in honor of her family

Reba Cardillo

Margo & Hilliard Eure

Drs. Daniel & Jamie Fernandez

Holmes Hepner & Associates Architects

Rob Iles & Mike Paonessa

Sue & Bob Isbell

Judi Kelly

Arnold & Gail Levine

Keith & Judith Maurer

Ingeborg Michaels

Dr. Richard E. & Mrs Mary B. Perry

Robin C. Sharp & Annemarie Christino

Barbara & Fell Stubbs

Laura & Ed Waller

Linda Rice

William M. Blanchard

Donna & Tom Brumfield

Suzanne Camp Crosby

John Hunter

Sandy & Floyd Juster

Art Keeble

Bob & Kathy Lewis

Leslie & Hampton Stephens

Your Neighbors at TAPS Restaurant Bar & Lounge

Pam Wysocki

Sharon & Lew Sibert

Anonymous

Hillary Carlson Cone in memory of Douglas P. Cone

Todd Edwards

Candy Olson in honor of

Charles, Henry, Edward & Margaret Jaskowiak

and Lynnea & Robbie Cobey-Broad

Keen O’Sullivan

Ellen & Bruce Houghton

Susan Landa in memory of Peter Landa

Grant Wilson & Diana Stevens

in memory of Laura Lundgren

Jim & Susan Casebeer

Chris & Stephanie Arnold

Dolores Coe

Ana Cruz

HJ Freeman

William Hein

Nancy, Ryan, & Briana Kipnis

Bill & Pam Michul

Bill Rogers

Julie Graham Sargent

Bob & Cathy Smith

Lincoln J. Tamayo

Alison Watkins

Marilyn & Robert Farber

David & Diane Drapcho

Colin DeVito

Harrison DeVito

John & Patricia Gorzka

in honor of Julia Gorzka Freeman

Bill & Judy Graham

Gail R. Hirsch

Jennifer Holmberg

Beth Iandoli

Marcia Israeloff & Paul Jacobsen

Kathy, Natalie, & Kaitlin Lowy

Amy, Michael, & Myla Martz

Joe & Laraine O’Neill

Mindy & Carl Snyder

Dana & Paul Whiting Jr.

Anonymous

Marilyn Zoidis

Alice Prida

Martha Coulter

Miriam B. Zack

Julia, Brett, & Jack Freeman

Mr. & Dr. Sarro

Anonymous

Abby Jetmundsen

Leo Pevnick