enjoying the view

Lush Highwaymen landscape painting unveils a bold history and beautiful legacy.

Angelique Anacleto

Dab and pause, dab and pause. While at Paint The Town Citrus art gallery’s fundraiser in the Crystal River Mall, two Florida Hall of Fame Highwaymen painters, Robert “R.L.” Lewis and Curtis Arnett, demonstrate their well-honed landscape painting abilities. Poised at their respective easels, both men meditatively dip at paper palettes, swiftly and easily filling their canvases with idyllic scenes of native trees swaying languidly against rippling rivers peppered with the occasional spray of water fowl. Even while carefully composing, they chatter with enthusiasm. While Lewis genially relays stories of early days, Arnett leads fascinated onlookers through his preferred brush techniques.

The Citrus County Democratic Executive Committee (CCDEC), which organized the event, helped raise money through a silent auction and a ra e to win both Highwaymen’s paintings. Proceeds totaling $495 went toward Citrus County Blessings, a non-profit organization devoted to supplying weekend meals to children who receive subsidized school meals.

Past Struggles Yield An Art Movement

Event interest was largely due to Lewis’ and Arnett’s celebrity, which draws eager art fans to their numerous appearances throughout Florida. Many gravitate to their hard-won struggle and the regional genre’s sustaining success, which dates back to the segregationist Jim Crow South of the 1950s and 1960s.

During a time when most AfricanAmerican families were destined to work in citrus groves, nine Fort Pierce painters ingeniously taught themselves and mentored each other on technique. At times, they worked in a swift factoryline fashion, using leftover oil paints on inexpensive Upson board. But because they were excluded from formal sales at galleries or art shows during this racially turbulent period, the Highwaymen sold their still-wet pieces from their car trunks along the southeastern coast on US Highway 1 and Florida A1A, thus earning their Highwaymen nickname. Other times, entrepreneurship steered them selling door to door. Spanning from the 1950s through the 1980s, 26 artists are recognized as original Highwaymen, and their more than 200,000 pieces are highly collectible.

While Lewis likewise recalls painting Indian River Lagoon scenes on Upson board and selling his landscapes in 1967, his path led him to college and teaching art for 32 years. Inspired by neighborhood artists, Arnett similarly began selling pieces for $25 from his car at age 17 and then later increased to $300-$1,000 per piece after discovering the precise, quick-drying results of acrylic paints.

keeping up with r.l. and curtis

Early painting methods have given way to include today’s advanced technology. At 75, Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis, III, field several requests at his gallery in Cocoa for commissions via email attachments. Says Lewis,

“I get email attachments saying, ‘Dear Mr. Lewis, I eat, live and work in the middle of this picture. Can you paint it?’ They take a picture in their backyard, and I can put it on a piece of canvas for them,” he says. Works now incorporate various animals, cowboys and buildings into Southern scenes. And his emphasis on preserving Florida’s natural history has helped Lewis to grow impressive commissions for the Department of Agriculture and Florida Cattlemen’s Association.

Arnett’s newest routine involves cleverly viewing inspirational outdoor shots directly from his digital camera to his TV, which he later uploads and archives onto a disc. The 66 year old, who lives in Lee, prefers to paint sights from around Orlando and Tallahassee.

“I like the cypress trees, the rivers. But I also like the cabbage farms and the oak trees,” says Arnett. He also has nostalgic plans to recreate his grandparent’s cotton and tobacco fields.

For both Highwaymen, dedication to their craft these days can necessitate asking prices as high as $7,000 for larger works.

Future Appearances

In true Highwaymen style, Lewis and Arnett still log their share of miles on the road. “Let me check my appointment book” is a common refrain as they travel each month for appearances around the state.

Lewis darted from Tallahassee to Orlando’s Orange County Regional History Center to a Clermont antique mall to a Mount Dora Highwaymen art show this past January.

Arnett also points to an upcoming Fort Pierce Highwaymen Trail event on February 18, plus a March 18-19 fundraiser by the Pompano Beach Historical Society and Sample-McDougald House Preservation Society.

Florida continues to celebrate homegrown Impressionists who make it their mission to depict and capture the timeless essence and natural beauty of the state’s endangered wetlands. Currently, paintings are showcased in Tampa’s Florida Aquarium and Tallahassee’s Museum of Florida History and Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

“More people are finding out about [Highwaymen art]. And the more people find out about us, the more we’re asked to come to di erent places and show,” says Arnett. “That’s one of the reasons why it’s continuing to survive like this.”

READ, WATCH, VISIT. . .

Check out Amazon for a handful of Florida Highwaymen books or rllewis.com for Lewis’ biography, A Journey Through the Eyes of an Original Highwaymen Artist, $29.95. Watch two PBS documentaries via Vimeo at thefloridahighwaymen.com.

• The Highwaymen: Florida’s Outsider Artists (2002), narrated by Good Morning America’s Spencer Christian

• The Highwaymen: Legends of the Road (2007)

Walk the illuminating 10-stop Highwaymen Heritage Trail in Fort Pierce, and experience where it all began. Visit thehighwaymentrail.com for details.

AND PAINT!

What better way to appreciate Highwaymen art than to paint along with a legendary artist!

Curtis Arnett will be instructing a painting class at Paint The Town Citrus, 1801 NW US Highway 19 in the Crystal River Mall, on April 22 from 12-5pm. He will explain how to finesse acrylic paint on 12-inchx16-inch canvas board. The fee for this five-hour class is $100 per person, including food and beverages. Call (352) 601-1344 or email paintthetowncitrus@gmail.com, as seating is limited.

Additionally, the gallery sells Highwaymen paintings by Arnett, Lewis, Willie Daniels, Rodney Demps and Chico Wheeler.