The Tampa Museum of Art is pleased to present Having a Ball: Striking Portraits from America’s Pastime by George Sosnak. One of the most beloved and best-known folk art painters of baseball, George Sosnak (1924-1992) was a lifelong, passionate fan of the game. He parlayed his enthusiasm for the sport into two concurrent careers: first as a Minor League umpire, and eventually as an artist, meticulously painting baseballs decorated with the images and arcane statistics so dear to fans of the game.

In the 1950s, a young female fan asked Sosnak for a portrait of her favorite player on a ball, and thus began an almost 40-year career, largely avocational, of producing colorful and increasingly intricate, themed baseballs. Some celebrate particular moments, some honor legendary players, and other mark championship teams.

Sosnak’s final, self-chosen challenge was to create a ball for each player in the Baseball Hall of Fame, recreating his Hall of Fame plaque as well as an overview of the player’s career in glorious detail and color. In the end, Sosnak is thought to have begun some 3,000 baseballs, and to have finished about 800. Having a Ball includes 53 George Sosnak artworks – 43 baseballs, and 10 works on paper.

Having a Ball: George Sosnak’s Striking Portraits from America’s Pastime was organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.

From antiquity through the present day, artists and craftsmen have found inspiration in the flora, fauna, and other forms of the natural world. For many artists, the vase in particular has lent itself to flourishes borrowed from nature, often together with – or in the form of – flowers and birds. While the forms and functions of the resulting artworks vary widely, from emulations to adaptations, and from aesthetic beauty to utilitarian purpose, all share a common inspiration worth exploring more closely. From the embrace of natural forms by artists associated with Art Nouveau – a movement only recently reconnected by scholars to the classical tradition – to more complex representations of vases, birds, and flowers by post-war and contemporary artists, Inspired by Nature will illustrate the beauty and vitality of the natural world alongside its many uncertainties.

Drawn primarily from the Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition will include more than two dozen artworks from a variety of media and time periods, in two dimensions and three. Of particular interest is Sensuous Triptych (2000) by Betty Woodman, a prominent American ceramicist whose recent passing prompted renewed attention to her work here in Tampa. Brightly painted and made of fired clay, with elements of painting, drawing, sculpture, and more, her work defies categorization. And just as its three pieces come together as one, the front sides and back sides communicating with one another, so too will the larger whole engage in dialogue with so many other vases, birds, and flowers displayed nearby.

The Henry B. Plant Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibit, Imperial Designs: From The HaBsburg’s Herend to the Romanov’s Faberge.  This exhibit showcases an exquisite collection of porcelains and decorative arts that harken back to the grand dynasties of 19^th century Europe and Asia.  Included in the exhibit are a dozen rare Fabergè designs featuring a lacquered box, elegant cigarette cases, a chamberstick, and a gold mounted brooch.  Other treasures include Russian eggs presented by tsars; Imperial Porcelain Factory china from imperial yachts including the royal private yacht Livadia; an impressive collection of Herend china from Hungary with patterns ordered by the Russian Tsar, royal houses and eminent customers.  These amazing pieces are all from the private collection of Kathy Durdin.

Several Russian pieces take center stage in the exhibit.  The Durnovo Casket, presented to Ivan Nikolaevich Durnovo, a high ranking official in the Russian government, is lovely enameled silver gilt openwork over sheets of lapis lazuli made by the Ovchinnikov firm.  Visitors may recognize the frescoes of renaissance artist Raphael highlighted in the Raphael service.  These pieces feature allegorical figures from frescoes in the Vatican.  This service was commissioned in 1883 during the reign of Alexander III.

During the last quarter of the 19^th century, Henry Plant and other wealthy Americans traveled extensively in Europe, absorbing the culture and acquiring treasures that they brought back to the United States.  This exhibit brings together a collection of items similar to what these travelers would have seen while visiting the great courts of Europe. Plant himself ordered and used Herend china at the Tampa Bay Hotel in the 1890’s.

Imperial Designs: From the Habsburg’s Herend to the Romanov’s Faberge opens on March 23rd and runs through December 23, 2018. The exhibit will open with a lecture by Kathy Durdin and reception at the Museum on March 23^rd.  Entrance to the exhibit is included with admission to the Museum.

This exhibit has been graciously underwritten by BNY Mellon, Greenberg Traurig, KPMG in honor of Kathy Woodard, and The Bank of Tampa.

Photographer Andrea Modica’s collection of black-and-white portraits of famous Yankees baseball players from their minor-league days is on view now at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.

The exhibition, which also includes portraits of best friends from Philadelphia and Modena, Italy, is titled Minor League and Best Friends. It will run through June 30 and is generously sponsored by the New York Yankees Tampa Foundation.

Modica’s skill using light to capture emotion and tone creates startlingly empathetic portraits of these now-celebrated athletes. Each image is a careful study of masculinity and teamwork, which is a neat complement for the series of best-friend portraits that is also featured in the exhibition.

TECO Public Art Gallery in downtown Tampa is proud to present ‘Beyond the Boundaries’ May 1 through June 29, 2018. Artist Glen DePasse, who is featured in his first Solo Exhibition, will exhibit his large-scale, mixed media, abstract photography.

 DePasse, who launched his artist website in 2016, entered The 2017 Gasparilla Fine Arts Festival and by unanimous vote won The Emerging Artist Award. Since that time, he has accrued an Honorable Mention Award in the Tampa Regional Artists Show and received a First Place Award in the 15^th Annual Martini’s and Matisse Event in Clearwater in 2018.

 Glen calls himself a mixed media photographer and takes a somewhat unique approach to his work. He creates a ‘Soft Sculpture’ set up in the studio, painstakingly airbrushing, layering, and manipulating various fabrics by using tension and suspension to make 3 dimensional forms. Next he creatively lights and photographs the forms, achieving a natural sense of depth, shadow and color gradation in the imagery. Photoshop is used only as a last step to crop and flip the final image. DePasse prints his own work.

Please join artist Glen DePasse on Friday, May 4th from 5:30 – 8:00 pm at TECO Public Art Gallery. He will host a Talk & Tour of the exhibition and share his work, his inspirations and answer questions. This event is FREE and open to the Public. Please join us.

The TECO Public Art Gallery is located at 702 North Franklin Street, Tampa, FL 33602. It is open Monday-Friday from 8 am-5 pm. For information about the gallery, please contact Curator Debra Radke at dradke2@gmail.com. For information about the artist please visit his website at www.glendepasse.com.

Tampa Museum of Art will present Vapor and Vibration: The Art of Larry Bell and Jesús Rafael Soto May 3 through September 30, 2018. This exhibition places in dialogue, for the first time, the work of two of the 20th century’s most innovative artists exploring light and space. Since the 1960s, Soto and Bell have pushed the boundaries of traditional painting and sculpture with new materials and forms. While there have been several exhibitions devoted to each artist, Bell and Soto aims to present their works in a fresh context not yet explored by curators and art historians. Bell and Soto is not a survey or historical overview of the artists’ prolific careers. Rather, the show will juxtapose key bodies of work by both artists in three sections: Cubes and Structures; Vapor and Vibration; and Light and Transparency.

Cubes and Structures section will explore the reductive significance of the cube and the grid as both artists pushed beyond traditional painting formats and pedestal sculpture. Vapor and Vibration looks at how Soto and Bell have used color, as well as contrasting properties of light and dark, to render spatial illusion and optical effects in 2D planes. The final section, Light and Transparency, demonstrates the artists’ investigations of light, color, and surface in experiential-based sculpture and installation.  Forty-five objects will be on view in Bell and Soto and will feature influential works from the 1960s through the present.

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Joanna Robotham, remarked, “Larry Bell and Jesús Rafael Soto were amongst the trailblazing artists altering the course of art history in the 1960s and 1970s. Although they lived in different corners of the world, they shared similar creative interests, particularly in regards to their explorations of light and space. I am excited to introduce our audience to Bell and Soto’s groundbreaking works of art.”

This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large.

The action of the play is told through the memory of the illegitimate son of one of the sisters, as he remembers the five women who raised him: his mother and four maiden aunts. He is only seven in 1936, the year his elderly uncle, a priest, returns after serving for twenty-five years as a missionary in a Ugandan leper colony. For the young boy, two other disturbances occur that summer. The sisters acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father for the first time, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever.

On the third Thursday of each month, September through May, visit the Museum at 11 AM to hear a live classical music performance.  Live concerts were the most popular daily entertainment at the Tampa Bay hotel, and Music in the Museum restores this authentic tradition.  Enjoy the sounds of the harp, guitar, or violin as you explore the Museum.  This program is included with admission to the Museum.

Past performers have included: John Barr (classical guitar), Damara Chaudhuri (harp), Marlena Noland (violin), Susana Szakacs (violin).

Music in the Museum is part of the SunTrust Community Connection series.

A monthly celebration of Tampa’s rich arts and culture scene! An evening of special offerings and programs by cultural venues, restaurants & more!

Fourth Friday participants can pick up a wristband at any of the participating cultural venues during event hours and plan their route with the schedule and suggested itineraries online at FourthFridayTPA.com. Then, just park once and let Downtown’s many alternative transportation options do the rest. Take a complimentary ride on the TECO Line Streetcar, stroll along The Tampa Riverwalk, cruise the Hillsborough on the Pirate Water Taxi, hail the FREE Downtowner ride service with an app on your smartphone, or saunter along 7th Avenue in Ybor, Tampa’s only Historic District. Participants also get a FREE hour of Coast Bike rental with a promo code (visit FourthFridayTPA.com  or the Facebook page for details).

The eighth annual International Photography Contest opens next week at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA).

Sponsored by Creative Loafing, photographers from all over the world submitted more than 700 entries in the following categories: People and Portraits; Places, Landscapes and Drone photography; Nature, Science and Animals; Documentary/Social and Political Photojournalism; Still Life; Abstract; and Conceptual.

A panel of local curators and artists judged the submissions and selected the top three images from each of the seven categories. One additional image was voted People’s Choice by participating photographers and their peers, bringing the total number of images in the exhibition to 22. Other than U.S.-based photographers, the final exhibition lineup includes contestants from Belgium, Austria, Israel and New Zealand.

“Our jurors had such a difficult job selecting winners this year,” said FMoPA Executive Director Zora Carrier, Ph.D. “We received so many powerful and significant submissions that it was nearly impossible to narrow it down to only 22. This year’s exhibition features strong and individual perspectives and truly remarkable photography.”

In addition to being exhibited physically in the museum’s Community Gallery, the winners’ work also will be exhibited digitally on FMoPA’s exterior LED screen.

This year, the photograph that received the highest score from the competition’s jurors was submitted by Kevin Barney, who entered his image – titled Caged – in the Nature, Science and Animals category. Barney will receive a $1,000 cash prize.

Winners have already been announced. For a complete list, visit www.fmopa.org. An awards ceremony honoring the winners will be held at the museum on June 22 from 5-7 p.m.

The International Photography Competition is on view during regular museum operating hours and is included in the general admission price. Museum admission is free for members and $10 for not-yet-members.

Book your free ticket for this guided tour! Space is limited and you must reserve a ticket on our Eventbrite page to attend (details below). This tour fills up quickly, so book your spot today!

Take a Tour of the Century at historic Le Méridien Tampa on Fourth Friday (June 22) in Tampa’s Downtown. Our century-old building will be on full display, as we whisk you back in time with architecture and design that will make you marvel.

You’ll see everything we’ve preserved and repurposed, including the terrazzo marble in Bizou Brasserie, our witness stand turned hostess stand, and the hand-painted ceilings in the original fourth-floor courtroom.

You’re sure to be delighted as we unlock the destination of Le Méridien Tampa, originally built in 1905. One guided tour will be offered at 5:30 p.m. on Fourth Friday Tampa (6/22/18) and will last approximately 30 minutes.

Admission is free, but space is limited to ensure a wonderful experience for all of our guests, so tourgoers must reserve a free ticket for the tour at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fourth-friday-tour-of-the-century-tickets-46507247429.

Anyone interested in taking the tour should enter at the Le Meridien Tampa entrance off of Zack Street, and meet our tour guide inside the lobby (first floor).

Fourth Friday Tampa wristbands will be available for pickup from your tour guide or our hostess in Bizou Brasserie. As an added perk, guests who attend our tour on Fourth Friday Tampa will receive a 20% discount off of their dinner in Bizou that night.

For more information about all of the fun happening for Fourth Friday Tampa, visit the main event page at http://www.fourthfridaytpa.com/.

We hope to see you there!

Multi-platinum and award-winning artists Daryl Hall & John Oates and Train announced their momentous co-headline North American summer tour will play Tampa’s AMALIE Arena on Friday, June 22, 2018 at 7:00 PM. Produced by Live Nation, the extensive trek will make over 35 stops across the U.S. and Canada including Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, New York, Nashville, Los Angeles and more. This marks the first time legendary duo Daryl Hall & John Oates will tour together with fellow award winning hitmakers, Train. Fans can expect full sets from both Daryl Hall & John Oates and Train, followed by a showstopping joint set.

A perennial winner of Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay award, Got Jokes? (GJ?) is one of the premier entertainment providers in the country. The GJ? signature improv show brings together a diverse roster of all-stars to create an interactive experience that leaves the audience wanting to join the action. With talent spanning across the continental United States, GJ? is more than an improv troupe. They’re a family of national comedians, a growing business, a supporter of creative arts in the community, and the brainchild of founder Daniel Jefferson. From the big screen to screens the size of your palm and everywhere in between, GJ? has assembled a formidable collective of rising stars on their way to being household names. When asked Got What?, our business is to make sure that the best answer is always Got Jokes!

To Kill A Mockingbird, like a great many books and movies that teach lessons about the value of truth and decency through presentation of a context that has ceased to value either, is centrally a story about children. Jem and Scout learn how their community values the words and lives of black and white people differently as they watch their father, Atticus, (Gregory Peck in the role that defined his career) defend Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) against a charge of sexual assault. And the kids’ perspective is largely our perspective, as audience; To Kill A Mockingbird leaves no doubt, and intends no subtlety, about who is guilty and who innocent. It’s not complicated, and it’s not a story about justice — at least not about legal justice. It is, however, a story about fairness, and in a lot of ways it’s the kind of story one would tell a child about how fairness and unfairness are sometimes rewarded. As Atticus tells Jem: “There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep them all away from you, but that’s never possible.” To Kill a Mockingbird shows us a very ugly thing, and says that our character is determined by the way we react to that ugliness. That lesson is still true, and the movie still feels relevant and alive today.

Immediately after the film, retired Tampa Bay Times film critic Steve Persall will lead a short discussion of To Kill A Mockingbird and an audience Q&A. The session is included with film admission.

The Annual Meeting and Luncheon is the Tampa Downtown Partnership’s premier event. Once a year the Partnership has the opportunity to share with our members and the downtown community a celebration of our organization’s successes and accomplishments throughout the year, recognize our outgoing and incoming Board Chair and induct Board officers and directors for the upcoming year.

The event features dynamic speakers, the release of the Partnership’s Annual Year in Review, remarks from the Partnership’s Board leadership, and a look at what lays ahead for downtown and our organization.

The Annual Meeting is a great opportunity to connect with downtown stakeholders, learn about key issues, and celebrate downtown’s continued growth.