Florida Artist Group Annual Symposium

Daytona Museum of Arts and Sciences

May 18 - September 3, 2007
Reception, Friday May 18

I am proud to be a member of this prestigious organization and I'm sure there are other PAF members as well.

Beginning with an opening reception Friday May 18th, and running through Sunday, September 3rd, this exhibit consists of works created by the oldest professional artists' organization in the state’s history.

The Florida Artist Group (FLAG) was formed in 1934 by a group of prominent artists in the Sarasota area called the "Gulf Coast Artist Group”. This group included Fred Messersmith (then head of the Stetson University Art Department), Hilton Leech, Lois Bartlett Tracy, and at least a dozen more of the most well established artists in the Gulf Coast region. The gradual inclusion of a wider membership base led to the eventual name change to “The Florida Artist Group”. In 1949 FLAG was incorporated as a State not for profit organization.

Over the years the group has exhibited in several museums around the state of Florida, including the St. Petersburg Museum of Art, the Miami Metropolitan, Cornell and the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

Every spring the group holds a members’ exhibition and symposium in a different Florida location, bringing in prominent out of state judges and speakers. This year’s judge is Dr. Donald Kuspit. Donald Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. Winner of the prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism (1983), given by the College Art Association, Professor Kuspit is a Contributing Editor at Artforum, Sculpture, and Tema Celeste magazines, the Editor of Art Criticism, and on the advisory board of Centennial Review. He has doctorates in philosophy (University of Frankfurt) and art history (University of Michigan), as well as degrees from Columbia University, Yale University, and Pennsylvania State University. He has also completed the course of study at the Psychoanalytic Institute of the New York University Medical Center. He received honorary doctorates in fine arts from Davidson College (1993) and the San Francisco Institute of Art (1996).

Dr. Kuspit will be presenting a program to the group on Saturday, May 19th at 1:00 pm at the Plaza Resort and Spa. For information on attending his lecture, please contact Sydney McKenna (904) 824-2414.