Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' new exhibit, The Florida Highwaymen: Interstate Connections, on view inside the Museum of Botany at the gardens' downtown Sarasota campus, opens this Saturday, July 20, 2024, and will be on view through Sept. 15, 2024.

The legendary Black landscape artists known as the Florida Highwaymen emerged in the 1950s in the agricultural communities of Fort Pierce and Gifford, Florida. Largely self-taught, the artists produced colorful paintings of Florida’s natural beauty—prior to the impacts of urbanization—that appealed to both residents and tourists. 

They were also prolific. The Highwaymen sold their artwork from the trunks of their cars during the post-World War II boom because they were unable to exhibit through traditional means due to the color of their skin. They'd turned to painting as an alternative to a life of manual labor—a life that many African Americans experienced due to the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Denied representation by commercial galleries due to their race, the Highwaymen sold their work by going door to door, as well as from the trunks of their cars along main thoroughfares such as U.S. Route 1 and S.R. A1A. That sales method is the inspiration for the name Highwaymen, first given to the group by gallerist Jim Fitch in 1994. 

In addition to celebrating the artistic achievements of the Highwaymen, Interstate Connections celebrates and connects their story and the experience of the African American community in Sarasota in the 1950s and 1960s. While the Highwaymen were painting the palms and beaches on the East Coast, residents of Sarasota’s predominantly Black Newtown neighborhood were s working to gain access to the segregated beaches on the Gulf.  Protests in support of beach integration in Sarasota began in September 1955 and were early efforts in the fight for equal rights, which resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, although it took many more years for the beaches to become integrated. 

In 2004, the Highwaymen's contributions were formally acknowledged by the state of Florida when 26 of the Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Work by the Highwaymen can now be seen in museums across the country.

The Florida Highwaymen: Interstate Connections opens July 20, 2024, and runs through Sept. 15, 2024. For more information, click here.