Antiquing in Florida, by Linda Stamberger

Florida has more to offer collectors than kitschy 1950’s alligator thermometers and flamingo ashtrays. The Sunshine State is by far the premiere southern traveling destination for antiquing, with antique malls and individual shops brimming over with every kind of antique and collectible under the golden sun.

Florida is the collector destination far removed from the state’s theme parks and souvenir shops. There are clusters of antique districts all over; from the country back roads of North Florida, to the multitude of antique districts in Central Florida. The coastal towns on the Gulf and Atlantic are loaded with antiques; especially the hi-end antique district called “Dixie Row” in West Palm Beach, and finally cosmopolitan Miami.

The near perfect weather year-round, minus a few hurricanes, makes Florida the ideal place to antique hunt. There are continual outdoor flea markets. Renningers in Mount Dora is the biggest and one of the best in Central Florida.

The summer months are the slow season, for the snowbirds (northerners who live in Florida only part of the year) return to a cooler climate, leaving the die-hard Floridians to sweat out the season. Not even 97 degree weather can stop the Florida antique hunter, for summer is a great time to find bargain items at antique malls and single owner shops.

Trends in collecting have existed for decades, but in Florida, trends are often related to Florida’s past. Certain antique malls specialize in Florida related merchandise that is profitable, such as vintage Highwaymen art. Highwaymen art collecting has remained steadfast, and is the most popular Florida collecting trend.

What makes Highwaymen art popular is the look; many windswept stormy beaches, intense colors, the way the paint was applied to the canvas. The artist's canvas consisted of old Masonite found from nearby construction sites, and shabby-chic type frames often left unpainted.

Individual dealers often have sales. Some hold fantastic antiquing events, inviting the public into workshops and have various artists make appearances, like the Highwaymen. In this way a Florida trend relates to what is most popular, or something as simple as geographical location. For example, Miami is known for the Art Deco district, and many collectors flock to Miami for the annual Art Deco weekend, in hopes of finding furniture and jewelry pertaining to that era.

In “Old Florida” towns, places that have remained virtually untouched by industrialization, collectors look for antiques that represent the town history, such as old maps and photographs. In the vintage oyster harvesting town of Apalachicola, photographs are sought after if they depict the area as it has remained throughout the decades. These are the types of antiquing towns that flourish in Florida; great antique locations within vintage buildings on historic sites, many listed on the national register of historic places. One prime example of an old antiquing town to travel to is Micanopy, pronounced Mick-e-no-pah, one of Florida’s oldest antique districts. 

Florida Highwaymen Art

Harold Newton Painting

The Highwaymen artists were painters discriminated against at the time, and had to sell their works on the side of the roadways, or sometimes door to door. Highwaymen artists used the palette knife painting tool and style like A.E. "Bean" Backus, though the most famous Highwaymen artist Harold Newton is considered more of a fine artist, like his teacher Backus. 

Newton taught other black artists how to paint in the Backus style, and they incorporated their own style of painting, aside from learned techniques, which was described as "fast painting." This enabled the artists to sell art quickly. They were not famous in their time like Backus, and usually sold paintings for only ten to fifteen dollars. This may not seem like much, but in the Jim Crow era of prejudice and segregation, selling fast painted art enabled them to make a living wage, which kept many artists out of the orange fields, and other manual labor jobs.

In the early 2000’s, Highwaymen art began to soar in popularity, having been written about by various news mediums, including my book Antiquing in Florida. Highwaymen art, or the Highwaymen artists, had finally arrived. Their work is no longer looked at as "motel art," but part of a legitimate art movement, one that is still popular today. 

A.E. “Bean” Backus

A.E. Backus was a man ahead of his time. His art studio was open to a plethora of would-be artists, in a time when segregation was rampant in Florida. Backus is credited for having taught the now referred to "Highwaymen Artist" Harold Newton how to paint. 

The Backus technique in particular is the use of a palette knife, creating layered thick paint in a fine art style depicting the "old Florida," with its puffy white clouds, bright blue skies, sunshine, and the lush flora and fauna indicative of central and the coastal parts of the state. Backus even painted wild Florida land and sea birds, plus livestock into his works; the multi-generational long horn steer brought over by Spanish settlers were in striking contrast to what people envisioned in regard to the "real Florida," with its sandy beaches. The attention to detail and realism made Backus paintings even more unique. He was famous in his time, and his paintings are still sought after today. 

Purvis Young: Florida Artist Extraordinaire

Florida is known as a place for artistic expression. The buoyant nature has inspired a magnificent variety of artists from all walks of life, creating works depicting both Florida landscape and lifestyle.

An example would be early sketch artists drawing Florida’s Indigenous tribes; including clothing, hunting and gathering techniques they used, along with the tools created from the environment.

Aside from indigenous people, there were explorers, pioneers from other southern states claiming territory, and more. Steamboats and railroads were also depicted artistically before the advent of photography, and encroachment of land by mass industrialization.

There are many big cities in Florida with urban culture and street life, often referred to as “Florida’s underbelly,” where the flora and fauna of Florida stops, and the concrete jungle begins. In these cities, paradise is long forgotten.

From out of the grit, Purvis Young was an unlikely artistic urban hero of the people in regard to his depiction of what he saw on the streets of Overtown Miami.

He painted a rising up from oppression through his own brand of urban abstract art; a unique style that makes Purvis Young one of the most prolific and gifted contemporary artists of his generation. He’s not viewed as just a Florida artist per se, but an artist with a message, like artist Jean-Michel Basquiat from New York. His message was that of oppression.

Before Basquiat became famous, he was living on the streets and painting on the concrete walls of New York City; his unique written word art and tags often identifying Basquiat to his work. Basquiat gained pop culture fame, yet the struggle he depicted remained fluid throughout, because he remembered where he came from, and what it was all about. He also struggled with racism after he was famous.

While Basquiat was in New York doing his fame thing, hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and other pop artists, Young was painting scenes on the streets of Miami, sweating in the oppressive Florida heat, art studios with little to no air conditioning adding to the elemental and organic angst of the work. Young used his experience as a discriminated against black man in his artwork, yet he also incorporated elements and symbolism truly unique to Florida.

It wasn't unusual to see a man on a horse trotting down the sidewalk into Overtown, the city part of town, having come from the outskirts, where the old Florida was miles away from Young's own urban experiences.

Young also put reactive qualities into his characters in regard to how other's viewed him, hence the discriminatory aspect, with the depiction and clashing of the two. He showed the unfairness of being prejudged by society and authority, his sense of morality, history of the black races; not just from a South Florida perspective, but from roots in slavery.

Young started in a dinky warehouse, and was painting urban masterpieces throughout town and on huge canvases as he developed. Like the celebrated folk artists throughout the decades in Florida, he would often make large frames from scrap wood. After fastening the wood together, he stretched large rolled canvas over the wood. He had no limits to the size of the piece he was painting, and could depict stories through his art with room for mass symbolism as a message, through determination and feverish intent.

He sometimes gave his work away until he was discovered, and relocated to a clean, big studio after achieving monetary success. Now his work, the massive paintings that he once gave away for free, fetch upwards of thirty-five thousand dollars.

There is a museum in Florida dedicated to the artist in Ft. Lauderdale: The Purvis Young Museum, at 725 Progresso Drive.

ART

Hurricane Ian 2022

Unusual Insect on Wood Fence Florida Grasshopper

Quite the Poser!

Majestic Owl in my Backyard