The Palmetto Historical Park and Manatee County Agricultural Museum are once again hosting the original Florida Highwaymen Artists for an art show and sale on Saturday, May 7th from 10AM - 3PM. The artists will have artwork for sale.

 

Artists who will be on site on May 7th include:
Curtis Arnett
Al Black
Kandie Ingram will be showing work of her mother, Mary Ann Carroll
R.L. Lewis
Doretha Hair Truesdell
Roderick Hair

 

In addition, vintage works of Alfred Hair, the Newton Brothers, Livingston Roberts, John Maynor, Robert Butler, and more will be available for viewing and purchase.

The Palmetto Historical Park and Manatee County Agricultural Museum will also be open for visitors to enjoy.

 

The Florida Highwaymen are a small group of African American landscape artists who began painting in the late 1950s. The paintings were then sold out of the trunk of their cars, as the artists went from door to door at homes and business offices or set up shop on a busy corner at the side of the road. Their bright and sultry images of Florida’s tropical beauty were sold for as little as twenty or thirty dollars. Today their paintings are widely sought after collectables.

 

The Highwaymen originated from the Fort Pierce, Florida area when a white artist, Albert Ernest “Bean” Backus began to tutor a young African American teen named Alfred Hair. “Bean” not only taught Hair, but he influenced other young artists interested in exploring their creativity and developing a similar, yet unique style of their own…as well as making a living outside of the back-breaking labor in citrus groves and tomato fields. In 1995 the term “Highwaymen” was coined by Jim Fitch, a Florida museum curator, who wrote an article about the artists for the magazine “Antiques and Art Around Florida.”