A Last-Minute Chance to Paint with a Legend
- Vero Minute
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
It's admittedly eleventh-hour, but if you've ever wanted to learn the techniques behind one of Florida's most extraordinary artistic legacies, Ray McLendon is hosting a two-day painting workshop tomorrow and Wednesday, February 3-4, from 9 AM - noon each day.
As a second-generation Highwayman whose father Roy McLendon was among the original nine pioneers of the movement, McLendon carries forward a tradition that transformed roadside entrepreneurship into museum-worthy art.
Click here to sign up | $180 per person, 15% discount for Vero Beach Art Club members.
When Jim Crow segregation locked them out of white-owned galleries in the 1950s and '60s, 26 African American artists from Fort Pierce painted Florida's landscapes — wind-swept palms, flame-colored sunsets, royal Poinciana trees — on cheap Upson board and sold their work directly from their car trunks along A1A and U.S. 1. Over the course of their careers, they produced an estimated 200,000 paintings. Those $25 roadside canvases now sell for thousands, and in 2004, all 26 artists were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
Black History Month offers the perfect moment to celebrate this legacy in Fort Pierce, where the 9th Annual Highwaymen Heritage Trail Art Show & Festival takes over Moore's Creek Linear Park on February 21 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The free event brings together original and second-generation Highwaymen artists, live jazz, guided heritage trail tours, and a chance to acquire works from one of American art's most distinctive movements. More information can be found here.
It's worth the drive down U.S. 1, the very highway where it all began. And don't miss the Backus Museum Highwaymen Celebration Weekend from February 13-15, featuring vintage works for purchase and special programming at 2 p.m. each day. For more information here.
