2003 Selected Exhibitions

This year we are proud to present our "Artists - In Season" series at the Custom House, running through August in the Bumpus and Bryan galleries. Providing museum exhibition opportunities for local artists stengthens the mission of KWAHS while enhancing the career of the artist. We hope you will enjoy this series.

"Artists - In Season" opens in November 2002 with photographer Michelle Wisniewski, and painter Irene Stanton. Then January 2003 through August brings artists from Marathon's Bougainvillea House Gallery, painter Barbara Vogel, University of South Florida's GraphicStudio printmakers, watercolorist Sandford Birdsey, constructionist Roberta Marks, Key West Plein Air painters group, Miami sculptor Freda Coffing Tschumy, and finally painter Greg Sobran in July.

On-Going Exhibitions from the Permanent Collection

Key West Art & Historical Society operates and cares for 3 historic buildings and a permanent collection of over 6,500 items relating to the military, industrial, economic, cultural and artistic history of Key West and the Florida Keys.

Additionally, the history of Key West is told through much of the Society's permanent art collection, with the art of Mario Sanchez, Stanley Papio, WPA artists of the 1930s, and the gay artists of the '70s and '80s.

At the Custom House:

• Who Is Key West? Internationally acclaimed painter Paul Collins displays his modern renditions of Key West's most memorable characters past and present, featuring subjects from Henry Flagler to Mario Sanchez, Fuzzy the Cobbler to Ernest Hemingway and more.


• Coping With Depression, the WPA in the 1930s - Dogwood Gallery - Exhibit depicts Key West in the '30s through drawings, sketches, intaglio prints, paintings and promotional brochures produced by the artists of the Works Art Project.


• Pirates In The Florida Keys - Dogwood Gallery - Artist Don Maitz captures the adventure of the high seas in this lively exhibit of pirate portraiture. Exhibit contains artifacts and pirate memorabilia.


• Looking For Hemingway - Documents the life and times of Ernest Hemingway through an extensive collection of personal memorabilia and photographs, including his WWI uniform, grammar school notebooks, and boxing gloves.


• The Citizen - 125th Anniversary Celebration - Dogwood Gallery - Take a walk through time with Key West's oldest local newspaper. See the headlines, read the infamous crime reports, relive the scandals and debates, as history unfolds across the headlines of The Key West Citizen.


• Mario Sanchez - Painter Of Old Key West - 2nd Floor. His detailed depictions of life in Key West during the early 20th Century have made him one of the country's most sought after folk artists. Sanchez' creations are mostly reliefs carved into wood panels and then brightly colored. They reflect street scenes, places and people from his past in amazingly accurate detail and with a profound sense of humor.

At the Lighthouse & Keepers' Quarters are instruments, maps, photos and historic lighthouse artifacts.

• You can climb the 88-step circular iron stairway leading to the lighthouse deck and get a magnificent 360º view of Key West.
• See a multifaceted "first-order" Fresnel lens large enough to walk into.
• Explore the fully restored and recreated house and verandah where the lighthouse keepers and their families lived in the 1800s.

At East Martello is the best-preserved example of the Martello style of military architecture in the country.

• The casemates, citadel and courtyard are home to a vast collection of Key West and Keys' artifacts and historical records as well as military memorabilia.
• The view from atop the central tower affords visitors a spectacular panorama of the Atlantic coast of Key West.
• In the garden and 80-year-old playhouse provides insight into how children lived and played in old Key West.

• Inside the galleries are the state's largest collections of painted woodcarvings and drawings by Mario Sanchez, and the scrap metal "junk" sculpture of Stanley Papio, both of whom are internationally renowned folk artists from the Keys.

Annual Themed Exhibitions

Each year changing exhibits of fine art and/or historical artifacts are presented in collaboration with and support of annual local festivals.

• June - Pride Fest - From the permanent collection - paintings by gay Key West artists from the '70s and '80s.
• June - Cuban American Heritage Festival - Each year art produced by a Cuban artist or depicting Cuba is chosen and presented during the festival.

• July - Hemingway Days - More of the collection of Hemingway's personal effects.
• September - WomenFest - Eclectic assemblage of art by women from Key Largo to Key West.


• September - ArtCamp 2003 - Carol Jo Vecchie Children's Gallery houses the creations of summer ArtCamp attendees, and the Children's Art Competition winners throughout the year.


• October - Fantasy Fest - Exhibit of fanciful masks, award-winning costumes, crowns worn by kings and queens of Fantasy Fest past, official posters and more.

For more information, email naberle@kwahs.org