MUSEUM WORLD

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of works in glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Shown here is “Summer,” a panel from Tiffany’s Four Seasons window from 1900. The museum also showcases the reconstructed Tiffany Chapel, which was originally displayed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. 42 LIVING IN WINTER PARK

‘The City of Culture and Heritage’ is more than a slogan in Winter Park. It’s an integral part of who we are.

BY MICHAEL MCLEOD AND RANDY NOLES

Winter Park is called “The City of Culture and Heritage” for

good reason. The community is home base for a remarkable array of museums. They encompass decorative, traditional and cuttingedge contemporary art as well as architecture, history and sculpture.

They’re all best experienced in person, of course, but we’ll do our best to give you an advance look on the following pages. When you visit, you usually won’t even need to load up the Family Truckster since, in many cases, the facilities are within walking distance of one another.

THE ALBIN POLASEK MUSEUM & SCULPTURE GARDENS 633 Osceola Avenue

The lushly landscaped grounds of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens border Lake Osceola, so the view alone is worth the trip. So are the magnificent flowers and rare trees that serve as a backdrop for the breathtaking sculptures on permanent display.

Born in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), Albin Polasek worked as a woodcarver in Vienna before immigrating at the age of 22 to the U.S., where he studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and for 30 years served as head of the sculpture department at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Meanwhile, he was crafting monumental works, from warriors and mythological figures to a 28-foot statue of Woodrow Wilson. Already world famous, Polasek retired to Winter Park in 1950, at age 70.

Shortly after relocating, the renowned sculptor suffered a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body — but it didn’t defeat him. He devised a method that enabled him to continue working despite the physical challenges he faced, enrolling an assistant to hold the chisel as he chipped away at his creations.

Against all odds, Polasek doggedly created 18 more sculptures despite being confined to a wheelchair. In addition, the man who claimed to be a confirmed bachelor married twice: first in 1950 to Ruth Sherwood, a former student of his who had retired to the same city, and nine years after Sherwood’s untimely death to Emily Muska Kubat, the widow of a friend.

Polasek’s Mediterranean-style studio/home — and a collection of 200 works, many of them displayed on the expansive grounds — is now owned and operated by the Albin Polasek Foundation.

So is the Capen-Showalter House, a historic home originally situated on the opposite side of Lake Osceola that was saved from demolition when it was floated across the lake in halves and reassembled on the grounds of the museum.

It’s always a good time to see the Polasek, but especially in 2021 as it celebrates its 60th anniversary as a museum with special events and displays. Over the course of the year, curators at the museum will tap into the extensive collection of family memorabilia and smaller, formative works that are lesser known — even to those who frequently visit.

An anniversary gala is slated for October 16, during the same week as the museum’s popular Winter Park Paint Out, a plein air event in which 25 invited artists participate. (Although Paint Out is usually held in April, it was moved this year to October because of uncertainty over COVID-19.)

Capping off the year-long anniversary commemoration will be an exhibition, Albin Polasek: Selections from the Permanent Collection, in which rarely seen sculptures and drawings will be on display. The exhibition will run from October 26 through December 5.

“Mr. Polasek kept a lot of sketches that he made when he was planning to create something, and we have a collection of those, and hundreds more fragile works we don’t have out normally,” says Debbie Komanski, the museum’s director and CEO.

Other smaller-scale creations in the museum’s collection that may be on display over the course of the year include a family Bible from Polasek’s childhood, written in Old Czech; sketches that date to his earliest, woodcarving years; and drawings of the Stations of the Cross that he made while developing sculptures commissioned by a Catholic church.

“He also liked to experiment with casting sculptures in other materials besides plaster,” says Komanski, adding that he would sometimes use aluminum or fiberglass as “something just for himself, just for his own pleasure.”

Of Polasek’s 400 known works, 200 of them are on display at the museum. More of his creations may be been seen throughout the city, most notably Forest Idyl at Winter Park City Hall and the Emily Fountain in Central Park, which was named for his second wife.

Hours are Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m., and Tuesdays through Saturdays

Located on the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, the lushly landscaped grounds and breathtaking statuary of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens (facing page) attracts visitors from around the world. The bronze statue shown is a 1962 casting of Polasek’s The Sower, one of more than 200 of the Czech-born artist’s works on display. Also on the grounds is the Capen-Showalter House (above), a once-endangered historic home that was floated across the lake via barge and restored for use as offices and an events space.

from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for children age 12 through college. Younger children are admitted free. Call 407-647-6294 or visit polasek.org for more information.

THE CASA FELIZ HISTORIC HOME MUSEUM 656 North Park Avenue

The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, like the Capen-Showalter House, was transplanted to its current Park Avenue address from its original site on the shores of Lake Osceola.

Architect James Gamble Rogers II designed the Andalusian-style masonry farmhouse in 1932 for Massachusetts industrialist Robert Bruce Barbour.

Most of Rogers’ work at the time was inspired by traditional styles he thought best suited Winter Park and its Old World ambiance. While all of Rogers’ buildings are community treasures, the Barbour House, as it was then known, was arguably the iconic architect’s masterpiece.

In 2000, when a new owner bought the lakeside property with plans to tear it down and replace it with a modern mansion, preservationists raised more than $1 million to move the home across Interlachen Avenue to a cityowned site adjacent to the Winter Park Golf Course.

The museum remains a popular special-events venue. It is operated by the Friends of Casa Feliz, which promotes such programs as the James Gamble Rogers II Colloquium on Historic Preservation, held each May.

At press time, tours were available through reservations only. Call 407628-8200 or visit casafeliz.us for more information.

THE ROLLINS MUSEUM OF ART AND THE ALFOND INN n The Rollins Museum of Art: 1000 Holt Avenue (Rollins College) n The Alfond: 300 East New England Avenue

The Rollins Museum of Art (formerly the Cornell Fine Arts Museum) and the Alfond Inn have formed a pioneering partnership that has drawn national attention from art lovers and art experts alike.

The museum overlooks Lake Virginia from the backside of the Rollins College campus at the southern end of Park Avenue. The hotel was built eight years ago on the footprint of the old Langford Hotel, and is just a short walk from campus, across Fairbanks Avenue and two blocks east of Park Avenue.

Rollins owns the 112-room facility, which is named for Ted and Barbara Lawrence Alfond, both 1968 Rollins graduates. The Alfonds, through a charitable foundation established by Ted’s late father, Harold, provided a $12.5 million gift to jump-start construction. (An expansion was underway at press time.)

And there was more to come. The couple also donated the 260-piece Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art to the museum, which was established in 1978. Roughly 140 of those pieces, on a rotating basis, now adorn the hotel’s walls, thereby expanding the museum’s reach into downtown Winter Park.

The works deal with such topics as war, censorship, critical thinking and relationships between different cultures and religious traditions. There are prints, paintings and photographs — as well as many pieces where words rather than images convey the message.

The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, now a popular special-events venue, is governed by the Friends of Casa Feliz, which also promotes such programs as the James Gamble Rogers II Colloquium on Historic Preservation, held each May. Rogers was the home’s original architect.

The on-campus museum has an extraordinary array of visiting exhibitions as well as a massive collection of its own. Hours are Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Wednesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

For information about both the museum’s and the hotel’s exhibitions, call 407-646-2526 or visit either thealfondinn.com or rollins.edu.

THE CHARLES HOSMER MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART 445 North Park Avenue

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, with its fabulous trove of lamps, sketches, pottery, stained-glass windows and lavish architectural confections by Louis Comfort Tiffany, was established by Hugh McKean, former president of Rollins College, and his wife Jeannette Genius McKean.

As a young man, McKean had studied with Tiffany at the artist’s lavishly appointed, 65-room Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall.

Following Tiffany’s death in 1933, the estate fell into disrepair and was further damaged by fire in 1957. The McKeans, determined to salvage what they could, gathered truckloads of art and architectural elements and shipped it all to Winter Park.

Tiffany’s work had fallen so far from favor that the now-priceless creations were thought to be of little value at the time. But the McKeans’ decision to bring the gilded art nouveau treasures to Winter Park for safekeeping would help define the city as an arts mecca.

Highlights in the museum include a restored Byzantine-Romanesque chapel interior, a terrace from Tiffany’s estate decorated with multicolored glass daffodils, and galleries that evoke the beauty of Laurelton Hall and the guiding philosophy behind it.

But if you think of the Morse only as a place to see dazzling work by Tiffany, you’re only partially correct. There are treasures galore either unrelated or only peripherally related to Tiffany.

Recently, Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. and Susan Cragg Stebbins donated their collection of American art in honor of Mrs. Stebbins’s parents, Henry and Evelyn Cragg. The Craggs were longtime Winter Parkers, and Henry Cragg was a member of the museum’s board of trustees from its founding in 1976 until his death in 1988.

Stebbins’ name is prominent in American art collecting and scholarship. He had an illustrious career as a professor of art history and curator at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Harvard Art Museums from the late 1960s to his retirement in 2014.

Among his numerous publications are his broad survey of American works on paper, American Master Drawings and Watercolors: A History of Works on Paper from Colonial Times to the Present, and his definitive works on American painter Martin Johnson Heade, The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade.

Thanks to Stebbins, American art gained recognition beyond the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, he staged the first exhibition of American paintings ever shown in the People’s Republic of China. In 1983, his exhibition A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760–1910 was shown in Paris at the Musée du Louvre.

“Susan and I are deeply honored that our collection will find a home

UPDATE: As Living in Winter Park was complete and going to press, it was announced that the Cornell Fine Arts Museum would be renamed the Rollins Museum of Art. For several years, it's been the college's plan to relocate the museum to a new building in the aptly named Innovation Triangle, a college-owned city block bounded by New England, Interlachen, Lyman and Knowles avenues. Two new buildings — one housing the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business and one housing the Rollins Museum of Art — will occupy what's now known as the Lawrence Center. The 40,000-square-foot building now occupied by Valley National Bank and other tenants will remain on the site’s northwest corner. Pace of the project will be dictated by fundraising that results from the college's just-launched capital campaign.

The rebranded Rollins Museum of Art (above, with the prior name still on the building), located on the campus of Rollins College, boasts the region’s only “encyclopedic” collection. For example, it’s the only museum in Central Florida to own works by Europe’s Old Masters. The Alfond Inn (left) houses a vast collection of contemporary art. An exhibit from 2017 showcased the work of Tomás Saraceno, an Argentine artists based in Berlin, whose Cloud Cities — Nebulous Thresholds hung under the glass dome of the conservatory at the boutique hotel.

at the Morse, a crown jewel among smaller American art museums,” says Stebbins. “We’re especially pleased to make this gift in honor of Susan’s parents, who brought their family up in Winter Park and who loved everything about the town.”

A total of 65 pieces, including works of art from preeminent American masters, were gifted to the museum as well as two long-term loans and the addition of three future gifts. The Stebbins’ art collection gift includes watercolors, drawings, sculptures and paintings from the late 19th century

The Hannibal Square Heritage Center, located in the heart of the city’s west side, was created in 2007 as an outreach effort of the Crealdé School of Art. Many of the center’s programs and exhibits pay homage to the historically African-American neighborhood surrounding it. The statue on the front porch (top right) is of a local hero, Chief Master Sergeant Richard Hall Jr., who died in 2021 at age 97. Hall, who lived near the center, served in the Army Air Force for 30 years and was a member of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. The mosaic (bottom right) depicts the pivotal role African Americans played in ensuring that Winter Park became incorporated.

and early 20th century.

Laurence Ruggiero, the museum’s director, says that the Stebbins Collection contains “exquisite pictures that are not only a delight to the eye but a joy for the mind.” How and when the Stebbins Collection will be displayed is being determined and will be announced with the museum’s season preview in the fall.

In the meantime, the museum’s new vignette, Chinese Blue and White Porcelain, features examples of Chinese ceramics dating from around 1740 to 1890. Such pieces became popular as home-decoration items, particularly in the 19th century, and remain sought after today.

Chinese blue-and-white porcelain — candlesticks, platters, pitchers, sugar bowls, tureens and teacups — likewise inspired many European and American artists and designers. Among them was Tiffany, who studied his own porcelain collection for design ideas.

In the 18th century, two regional variations of porcelain — Canton and Nanking, both of which were produced in the port city of Guangzhou — emerged.

Complete sets of Canton porcelain, fashioned to accommodate European dining traditions, were embellished with broad brushstrokes of toned blues depicting flowers, village scenes and interweaving patterns. Nanking wares were a higher quality of export porcelain, often featuring evenly

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The Winter Park History Museum (facing page, top) occupies a corner of the old railroad station, along New England Avenue, in a space that was once the freight ticketing office of the Atlantic Coast Line. At the Crealdé School of Art (facing page, bottom), more than 100 visual-arts classes are taught by a faculty of 40 working artists. There’s also a summer “Artcamp” for children and teens, and a Visiting Artists Workshop series. The school stages art exhibits in galleries at its home campus and the Hannibal Square Heritage Center.

executed cobalt scenes in more refined detail highlighted by gold accents. Works in the vignette were acquired over the course of 40 years by lifelong Orlando residents Benjamin L. Abberger and Nancy Hardy Abberger. The 200-piece collection was recently donated to the museum by their children.

The Abbergers, who died eight months apart in 2011 and 2012, were patrons of the arts — both supported the Opera Guild of Orlando and the Florida Symphony Orchestra — and had a connection to the museum through their long friendship with founders Hugh McKean and Jeannette Genius McKean.

The Morse — which also sponsors a film series and educational programs — is named for Jeannette Genius McKean’s maternal grandfather, a Chicago industrialist and philanthropist who made Winter Park his vacation home in the late 1800s and later retired here.

It’s owned and operated by two foundations — the Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation and the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation, which honor the memories of Jeannette’s grandfather and mother, respectively.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is $6 for adults age 18 or older, $5 for seniors age 60 and older, and $1 for full-time students. Call 407-644-1429 or visit morsemuseum.org for more information.

THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM AND THE HANNIBAL SQUARE HERITAGE CENTER n History Museum: 200 West New England Avenue n Heritage Center: 642 West New England Avenue

Winter Park’s two history museums have distinct but complementary purposes. One encompasses the city as a whole, beginning with its founding as a cold-weather getaway for wealthy Northerners. The other focuses specifically on the traditionally African American west side, which has its own tales to tell.

The cozy (900-square-foot) Winter Park History Museum occupies a corner of the old Atlantic Coast Line freight office — the site where the Farmers’ Market is usually held — on New England Avenue one block west of Park Avenue.

The current exhibition, Rollins: Florida’s First College, The Early Years 1885-1935, guides visitors through the first decades of the college’s story — a roller-coaster period of struggles and triumphs.

Featured are re-creations of a 1930s dormitory room, a classroom configured to President Hamilton Holt’s “conference plan” of interactive instruction and a student union displaying memorabilia related to sports, fads, trends and fashion.

Admission to the museum is free, although donations are gladly accepted. Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Each Monday at 10 a.m., the museum stages a children’s show, Penelope, Princess of the Peacocks. Call 407-644-2330 or visit winterparkhistory.org for more information.

The Hannibal Square Heritage Center is set in the heart of Winter Park’s bustling west side, which was platted in the 1880s with lots designated specifically for African Americans.

By the 1990s, the west side’s business district had been redeveloped as an upscale shopping and dining destination, and the neighborhoods surrounding it had begun to gentrify.

The Crealdé School of Art founded the center in 2007 in partnership with the City of Winter Park Community Redevelopment Agency. Its collection is the only one of its kind in Central Florida and depicts life in the increasingly diverse neighborhood from 1900 to the present.

The center is, in fact, two museums in one, pairing revolving art exhibits with vintage photographs and oral histories from west side residents, some of whom can remember working for wealthy Winter Park families by day, knowing that they had to be “back across the tracks” by nightfall.

Focal points of the center’s permanent collection are The Heritage Collection: Photographs and Oral Histories of West Winter Park, along with The Sage Project: Hannibal Square Elders Tell Their Stories.

A new exhibition, Preserving the Past and Looking Towards the Future: A Celebration of Hannibal Square, will be the largest showcase of the permanent collection to date, according to curator Fairolyn Livingston, the center’s chief historian, and Peter Schreyer, documentary photographer and executive director of Crealdé. It’s on view through December 31.

Says Livingston, an alumna of Rollins College and winner of its 2021 Fred Rogers Global Citizenship Award: “Newcomers and long-time residents alike owe it to themselves to learn the history and contributions of all ethnic groups to their community.”

Thirty-minute docent tours are available, with group size limited to six people. Preregistration is required at least a day in advance.

Among the many stories you’ll encounter via videotapes and displays is that of a local hero, Chief Master Sergeant Richard Hall Jr., who died in 2021 at age 97. A full-sized “lifecast” of Hall, in a red sports jacket and red cap, stands next to the front door of the center.

During World War II, Hall served in the Army Air Force as a Tuskegee Airman, from the so-called “Red Tail” squadron, a legendary group of African American military pilots who formed the segregated 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Force.

Admission to the center is free. Call 407-539-2680 or visit hannibalsquareheritagecenter.org for more information.

CREALDÉ SCHOOL OF ART 600 St. Andrews Boulevard

At the eastern reaches of Winter Park is the Crealdé School of Art, founded in 1975 by local homebuilder William Sterling Jenkins. It’s a sprawling lakeside haven tucked behind a strip mall where you can take classes in just about every art form imaginable.

Behind Crealdé’s yellow stucco walls, instruction is offered in photography, painting, ceramics, sculpture, papermaking, jewelry design, fabric arts and even bookmaking (meaning the literal making of books, not gambling).

The school also holds periodic art exhibitions and celebrates an annual “Night of Fire,” which features demonstrations by artists, a bronze pour at the school’s foundry and storytelling around a fire pit on the grounds of the Spanish-style campus.

It’s said that Jenkins devised the name “Crealdé” by combining the Spanish word crear (“to create”) and the Old English word alde (“village”). And that’s what he meant the school to be: a creative village.

Jenkins wasn’t an artist of exceptional complexity. He was, however, certainly devoted to art — and committed to sharing and teaching it. In 1981, he reorganized Crealdé Arts Inc. as a nonprofit with a volunteer board. Ten years later he donated the entire facility to the organization, allowing it to establish complete autonomy and secure new funding sources.

At Crealdé today, more than 100 visual-arts classes are taught by a faculty of 40 working artists. There’s also a summer “Artcamp” for children and teens, and a Visiting Artists Workshop series. The school stages art exhibits in three galleries: at its home campus, at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center and at an extension campus in Winter Garden.

Crealdé is open Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission to the galleries is free, although there are fees for art classes. Call 407-671-1886 or visit crealde.org for more information. n

MAITLAND IS ALSO A MUST

The Maitland Art Center (above), a National Historic Landmark, is one of the few surviving examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast. Its imagery is drawn from European, Chinese, Christian, African, Persian and, of course, Mayan signs and symbols, which mix and mingle in an otherworldly way. Enzian’s 220-seat theater (below), with comfortable chairs and table service, is a welcoming place to watch offbeat films. ART & HISTORY MUSEUMS - MAITLAND

n Maitland Art Center, Maitland Historical

Museum, Maitland Telephone Museum: 231 West Packwood Avenue, Maitland 32751 n William H. Waterhouse Museum and Carpentry Shop Museum: 820 Lake, Lily Drive, Maitland 32751

This charming complex of five museums includes the Maitland Art Center, the Maitland Historical Museum, the Maitland Telephone Museum, the William H. Waterhouse Museum and the adjacent Carpentry Shop Museum. All are worth visiting, but the Maitland Art Center is a must.

In 1937, artist and architect Jules André Smith built the center, then known as the Research Studio, to foster artistic experimentation and to provide artists with an inspirational environment in which to work.

Over the next two decades, until his death in 1959, Smith lived and worked at the center, as did many other artists. He hand-carved most of the center’s signature sculptural reliefs using a special pivot table that could turn upward. A replica of the table, which Smith invented, is on display in one of the studios.

While the center is billed as one of the few surviving examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast, its imagery is drawn from many sources. European, Chinese, Christian, African, Persian and, of course, Mayan signs and symbols mix and mingle in an otherworldly way.

The center has been named a National Historic Landmark, joining such iconic places as the Empire State Building, the Gateway Arch, the White House, Hoover Dam and Walden Pond.

The Maitland Art Center is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The other museums are open Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and children ages 4 to 18. Call 407-539-2181 or visit artandhistory.org for more information.

ENZIAN 1300 South Orlando Avenue (U.S. Highway 17-92), Maitland 32751

Central Florida’s only art-movie house is included in this story because it’s a museum, of sorts — one that just happens to curate films rather than paintings or sculptures.

Indeed, Enzian is no strip-mall multiplex. It’s one of Central Florida’s most cherished cultural landmarks — one that resembles an understated country club more than a movie theater, with an outdoor restaurant situated beneath towering live oaks and an intimate, cabaret-style movie theater just inside.

Enzian is a nonprofit organization with a Winter Park connection. It was founded by the family of the late John Tiedtke, a philanthropist who for decades ran (and mostly funded) the storied Bach Festival Society of Winter Park.

The big event of the year at Enzian is the Florida Film Festival, which brings dozens of the world’s best independently produced new features, documentaries, animated films and shorts to Central Florida. (Although it’s usually held in April, the 2020 festival was held in August and included a substantial streaming component as well as socially distanced in-person viewing at the theater.)

On a more modest level, Enzian partners with the City of Winter Park to present its “Popcorn Flicks in the Park” series on the second Thursday of each month in downtown Central Park. The familyfriendly classic flicks typically start at 7 or 8 p.m., depending upon when the sun sets. Admission is free.

Showtimes and ticket costs for other events vary. Call 407-6290054 or visit enzian.org for more information. n

ART ALONG THE AVENUE

Downtown Winter Park is the scene of numerous events and festivals. Among the most notable is the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, which attracts several hundred artists and several hundred thousand spectators. Shown here, throngs are just beginning to arrive as artists open their booths.

If people know nothing much about Winter Park — do such people exist? — they at least know about its art festivals. One is approaching its 63rd year and attracts artists from all over the U.S. The other, entering its 47th year, spotlights only Florida artists.

However, in 2020 neither festival was held because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, scheduled in March, was cancelled just as the pandemic gained speed and a lockdown loomed. And the Winter Park Autumn Art Festival, scheduled for October, was cancelled as public health concerns stubbornly hung on.

Although the cancellations were unprecedented, the spring festival returned in 2021 — uncustomary, and likely for the only time, in June — while the fall festival is scheduled for October of this year.

WINTER PARK SIDEWALK ART FESTIVAL

When the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival made its debut in the spring of 1960, the volunteers who created it wondered if they could attract the attention of enough artists and art lovers to make the event work.

So far, so good. The 2022 spring festival is slated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 18, 19 and 20 in Central Park. Some 200 artists — selected from among more than 1,000 applicants — will showcase their work for an estimated 350,000 people.

Artists compete for 63 awards totaling $72,500. The Best of Show winner is purchased for $10,000 by the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival Board and donated to the City of Winter Park. Previous Best of Show winners are on permanent display at the Winter Park Public Library.

Youngsters can create their own artwork at the Children’s Workshop Village. Easel painting is a popular activity, and budding artists can take their creations home with them. The Leon Theodore Schools Exhibit showcases art by students in Orange County schools.

There are sculptures, drawings, paintings, photography, mixed media and a variety of other genres on display at the festival, which is consistently rated among the most prestigious in the U.S.

Festival traditions include the selection of original art for the official festival poster, which is sold at the event. Posters from prior years are considered collectible by festival fans. Also during the festival, admission to the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is free.

The mission of the festival — which is still run entirely by volunteers — hasn’t changed since its beginning decades ago, says past president Alice Moulton. “The event offers an enjoyable, fulfilling and profitable experience for artists,” she says. “Plus, it enhances art appreciation, art education and community spirit.”

Visit wpsaf.org for more information.

WINTER PARK AUTUMN ART FESTIVAL

Central Park is a gorgeous seasonal setting for an event devoted exclusively to Florida artists — and a community that appreciates them. The Winter Park Autumn Art Festival is, in fact, the only juried fine-art festival featuring only Florida artists.

The free, 47-year-old annual event, hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, is scheduled for October 9 and 10 in Central Park. You’ll be able to view the work of 180 artists, whose genres encompass ceramics, drawings and graphics, fine crafts, jewelry, mixed media, paintings, photographs and sculptures.

In addition, the Crealdé School of Art presents workshops for children ages 5 and up during the festival, which also features musical entertainment.

Visit winterpark.org for more information. n