Polk Museum of Art

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The Junior Welfare League started it in 1966 as the Imperial Youth Museum. It moved into a former Publix supermarket in 1970, which doubled its gallery and classroom space, took the name Polk Museum of Art in the 1980s, and opened the present building, designed by Ernie Straughn, in 1988. On June 1, 2017, it entered an affiliation with Florida Southern College, and in 2024 it was renamed the Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art after a gift from the Nicholas and Ashley Barnett Foundation. The permanent collection runs past 2,500 works, from pre-Columbian pieces through Asian art, African art, decorative arts and outdoor sculpture to modern and contemporary work, and the contemporary holding has grown well beyond its original Florida focus to include Latino, African-American and Asian-American artists. It is nationally accredited and a Smithsonian Affiliate, which is unusual for a city this size, and the Smithsonian tie brings in traveling exhibitions a museum this size would not otherwise see. Admission costs nothing