Picturing Paradise: From John James Audubon to the Florida Highwaymen with Keri Watson

Saturday, June 13, 2026, at 1pm
Leonhardt Auditorium

Free; Space is limited; pre-registration required.

The Florida landscape has provided aesthetic inspiration to artists for centuries. Titian Ramsay Peale and John James Audubon came in search of native flora and fauna, followed by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Johnson Heade, George Inness, Winslow Homer, and Henry Ossawa Tanner, who were lured by its natural beauty and warm climate. This presentation offers a succinct and engaging history of Florida’s landscape painters.

Keri Watson is professor of art history at the University of Central Florida and assistant director of the School of Visual Arts and Design. She is the author of Florida's New Deal Parks and Post Office Murals (2024) and This is America: Re-Viewing the Art of the United States (2023), and co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Art and Disability (2022).

Funding for this Florida Talks program was provided by Florida Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities.