The Norton Museum of Art, originally called the Norton Gallery and School of Art, was South Florida’s first art museum when it opened with free admission on Feb. 8, 1941, with about 160 pieces, primarily European, American, and Chinese art, from the personal collection of founders Ralph and Elizabeth Norton. It now stands as the largest art museum in Florida. As the Norton prepares to celebrate its 85th anniversary, we take a look back at its history.
A timeline of West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art
1940 Construction begins
Construction begins between South Olive Avenue and South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach on the Norton Gallery and School of Art founded by Ralph Hubbard Norton (1875-1953) and his wife, Elizabeth Calhoun Norton (1881-1947).
1941 The Norton opens to the public, and Gauguin sets the bar high
On Feb. 8, 1941, the Norton Gallery and School of Art opens to the public. The Art Deco building houses about 100 works.
Ralph H. Norton pays $25,000 for Paul Gauguin’s masterpiece, “Christ in the Garden of Olives” (1889). It is his most expensive acquisition to date. Today, it is considered priceless.
1942 Chinese carvings create the Norton’s bedrock
Norton buys a group of more than 50 Chinese carvings made from jade, rock crystal and lapis lazuli. Most date from the 18th and 19th centuries. These are some of the first artworks the Nortons acquired.
1943 Ann Weaver comes to town
Ann Weaver, a sculptor, applies for and is accepted for a position teaching sculpture at the Norton Gallery and School of Art starting in early 1943.
1945 Sheltering from the storm
The Norton becomes a designated storm shelter, and during an unnamed hurricane around Sept. 15, the wife of Lt. Carl Landau takes refuge there where a baby girl, Karen Gale Landau, is born.
1946 The artist Anne Weaver
A number of collectors in Palm Beach begin to take notice of Anne Weaver’s work and purchase several sculptures. The director of the Norton Gallery, Robert Hunter, buys two pieces: “Beauty Parlor” in 1946 and “Machine II” in 1947.
1947 A death
Elizabeth Calhoun Norton dies after what is widely described as “a long illness.”
1948 And a wedding
Ralph Norton marries the artist Ann Weaver, who is 34 years his junior. He promises not to try to change her and builds her a studio behind their house on Barcelona Road to prove it.
1953 Ralph Norton dies
Ralph Norton dies, leaving hundreds of pieces of art to the Norton Gallery of Art.
1961 Japanese woodblock prints are gifted to the Norton, significantly increasing its Asian Art collection.
1964 The Norton acquires Stuart Davis’ “New York Mural,” one of its most popular pieces.
1965 The heist
Thieves steal about 100 jade objects and antique jewelry. Burglars tie up the lone night watchman but place newspapers on the floor to keep him clean. Most of the stolen jade is recovered four months later in a residential garage in Hollywood, Florida. No arrests are made, though the FBI suspects it was a commissioned theft where the buyer backed out.
1971 The Norton acquires Jackson Pollock’s “Night Mist.”
1977 The Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
Ann Norton creates a foundation to preserve her home and gardens just blocks south of the museum. The Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens are established for public enjoyment as an urban sanctuary for art, nature, and history.
1981 Inviting outside exhibits
The Norton hosts its first big blockbuster traveling exhibition, “The Armand Hammer Collection.” Lines wrap around the block.
1982 Ann Norton dies
Ann Norton dies of leukemia.
1990 Christina Orr-Cahall comes on board as director. She serves until 2009.
1995 Expansion begins with one wingThe Norton undergoes the first of three expansion projects. Centerbrook Architects and Planners design the $17 million expansion which adds a wing.
1997 Construction is completed in January on the expansion and new wing.
1999 Additional Japanese woodblock prints are gifted to the Norton, further expanding its Asian art holdings.
2001 Another expansion launched
A second, significant expansion begins.
2003 Norton becomes the state’s largest art museum
The Nessel Wing, a 45,000-square-foot, three-story wing on the southwest side of the museum named for shoe magnates Melvin and Gail Nessel, who donated $6 million, opens. With this expansion, the Norton becomes Florida’s largest art museum, surpassing the Ringling Museum on the state’s west coast.
2005 Elsie and Marvin Dekelboum gift the Norton with 19 paintings.
2008 Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo
Valerie Pascal Delacorte donates $1 million and 66 European sculptures and paintings including five Old Master paintings. The gift of works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo and others is called “transformational” by the Norton’s chief curator said at the time.
2010 New directorHope Alswang comes on board as director.
2011 Celebrating women
The Norton launches Recognition of Art by Women (RAW), an annual solo exhibition series that celebrates the contributions of living female painters and sculptors.
2012 Supporting photographyThe Norton institutes the Rudin Prize for Emerging Photographers, a biennial international award those on the leading edge who have not yet received a solo museum exhibition.
2013 A $60M makeover and expansionThe board approves a bold expansion enlisting the renowned London-based architectural firm of Foster + Partners to design a new building. At a cost of $60 million, the expansion will nearly double the gallery space and add an education center, auditorium and restaurant.
2015 Plans sharedThe museum reveals its detailed plans for the $60 million renovation, which includes a grand and modern entrance along South Dixie Highway and an additional 12,000 square feet of gallery space. Keurig Green Mountain coffee magnate Bob Stiller and his wife, Christine, who have homes in Palm Beach, New York City and Charlotte, Vt., make a lead gift of $5 million toward the renovation project.
2016 Breaking groundThe museum breaks ground. The plan includes adding a west wing and a new entrance into a great hall with 44-foot-high ceilings. This flex space will serve as a community living room, as well as a space for receptions. Architects transform a parking lot next to the museum into a 9,000-square-foot sculpture garden, plus add 12,000 square feet of gallery space, a 210-seat auditorium, 3,000 square feet of classroom space and a restaurant with outdoor dining.
2018 Largest gift to date and closing, temporarilyAmerican investor and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin donates $16 million to the Norton, the largest gift it had ever received. Palm Beach residents Howard and Judie Ganek promised more than 100 works from their collection, dramatically expanding its Modern and contemporary art holdings in one fell swoop. Included were contemporary art paintings by Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, and Kara Walker. The museum closes in July for renovations.
2019 The “New Norton” opens
The “New Norton” opens to the public on Feb. 9 with about 350 works on display. The $100 million expansion and “reimagining” of the museum is chronicled in a 248-page coffee table book with 400 stunning photos. ”Ralph Norton and His Museum,” by Ellen E. Roberts, with a timeline of his life and collection by Lesley A. Wolff.
2020 Pandemic closes doors, but does not stem donations
The Norton closes for eight months because of the COVID-19 pandemic and reopens in November with new exhibits and safety precautions. Major gifts of American art are received, including 19th-century neoclassicism and impressionism and 20th-century realism and modernism by artists William Merritt Chase, Jared French, William Glackens, Childe Hassam, Jane Peterson, John Henry Twachtman, John Quincy Adams Ward, Andrew Wyeth and Hartwell Yeargans. 2021 “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection.”
Ghislain d’Humières comes aboard as the Norton’s new Kenneth C. Griffin Director and CEO. That fall, the museum begins to emerge from the pandemic, hosting the blockbuster exhibition “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection.” 2023 Safety grant
The Norton Museum receives $750,000 in federal funding for structural, safety improvements. It is the first federal money received. 2024 Director who oversaw Norton’s transformation dies
Hope Alswang, the woman who ‘transformed’ the Norton, dies on June 11 in Providence, Rhode Island, of pancreatic cancer. She was 77. “When I came I thought I’d take a somewhat sleepy museum and shake it up,” she told The Post in 2018. And she did. 2025 Acquisitions and gifts by the scores
In September, 80-plus artworks are added to the museum’s collection via a combination of acquisitions and promised gifts. Highlights include one of Fred Eversley’s parabolic lens sculptures; a 1981 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat; Mary Cassatt’s drawing ”Mother Jeanne Nursing Her Baby”; and three new blue-and-white porcelain objects from the Qing dynasty. 2026 A birthday party
The Norton will host its Gala over the 85th anniversary weekend. Tickets are on sale for $750. This spring, the Norton will host its 10th iteration of RAW, with “Danielle Mckinney: Shelter “and a retrospective exhibition featuring works by the nine previous artists as it looks ahead to the next phase of the Foster + Partners master plan for the campus.
If you go
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Norton Museum of Art: A timeline of 85 years of art, growth, and transformation
Reporting by Janis Fontaine, Special to the Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
