Jayne Eckersall

After the circus 🎪 museum Greg and I walked around to the Art Museum and that was like walking into an Italian Palace.

Here, in an extraordinary place is an extraordinary collection of art. From the Rubens Galleries to Joseph’s Coat: a skyspace by James Turrell, view the permanent collection’s treasures, the fascinating exhibitions from around the world and the classical sculptures that fill the grand courtyard. The State Art Museum of Florida, this awe-inspiring museum was originally built by famed circus impresario John Ringling as a legacy to the citizens of Florida. This is a place of beauty and wonder.

In 1925, circus impresario John Ringling (1866–1936) decided to build an art museum, both as a legacy meant to outlast his business interests and as a memorial to his wife Mable and himself. By sharing the arts of Europe with the people of Florida, Ringling sought to educate and encourage curiosity for the wider world.

John H. Phillips designed the Museum—a pink, Renaissance-style palace with 21 galleries enclosing a courtyard graced with copies of iconic sculptures. First opened in 1930, Ringling filled the Museum with European paintings, paneled rooms from the Gilded Age Astor mansion in New York, and ancient and medieval objects purchased from distinguished collections. Upon his death in 1936, Ringling bequeathed  the Museum to the people of Florida.

A History of the Museum of Art

John Ringling was one of the early 20th century’s most prolific collectors of art. The Museum of Art is his legacy. In 1905 Ringling married Mable Burton, a woman who shared his love for and taste in art. Soon after their marriage they became fixtures in New York’s art auction houses, buying paintings, furniture and tapestries from the homes of the wealthy and socially prominent for their own growing collection. In 1924, the Ringlings met the prominent German art dealer Julius Böhler, a relationship that would prove crucial to Ringling and his growing interest in collecting art.

The Ringlings had been traveling through Europe for years and had fallen in love with Baroque art. In 1925 he hired architect John H. Phillips to design and build a museum on his Sarasota property to house his ever-growing collection. What Phillips designed was a U-shaped pink palace with 21 galleries to house Ringling’s treasure trove of paintings and art objects, highlighted by a collection of masters that would eventually include Velazquez, El Greco, Van Dyck, Veronese, Tiepolo, Gainsborough and Rubens. Paired perfectly with the Renaissance-style of the Museum, the Museum of Art’s Courtyard embodied the ideals of the Renaissance garden. Its long loggias flank a central courtyard that features an impressive group of early twentieth-century bronze and stone casts of famous Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque sculptures, among them, at its heart, Michelangelo’s David from Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. 

Ringling hoped that by building the Museum he would make Sarasota a cultural and educational center. To achieve his vision he began buying comprehensive collections with prestigious provenances, beginning with the purchase of three rooms complete with furnishing, paintings and architectural finishes from the Astor Mansion and a villa in the Tuscan countryside. He also purchased four tapestry paintings, oil on canvas, by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens from the Duke of Westminster. Today these magnificent paintings welcome you as you enter the Museum’s gallery and are the foundation of the Museum’s extraordinary Baroque collection.Read more