Awesome Art Attractions
10 Places to See Amazing Art on Florida's Gulf Coast

Step inside the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Pete and enter a surreal world honoring the life and works of the influential Spanish artist. 

The Dalí sits on the St. Pete waterfront and includes the peaceful and punny Avant-garden. The journey begins when you enter the fantastical building, designed by St. Petersburg-based architect Yann Weymouth. An interplay between the rational and fantastical, the building includes a rectangle with thick walls that counter a large glass bubble, called the “enigma,” made of over 1,000 triangular pieces of glass. Another feature is a neutral, helical staircase, which speaks to the artist's obsession with the double helix. 

The largest collection of Dalí’s art is in his hometown of Figueres, Spain, but this museum, which grew out of the collection of A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor R. Morse, includes 2,400 works that span the chapters of the artist’s career. 

Several iconic works, such as the 9- by 14-foot “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus,” can be found inside, as well as Dalí’s signature melting clocks, optical illusions to all things avant garde. 

Inside the Dalí Dome, immerse yourself in Dalí Alive 360°, a multistory experience co-produced by the creators of Van Gogh Alive that celebrates the influential artist. Works by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and M.C. Escher are also featured here.

Travel to the sweeping canyons, winding river valleys, and endless horizons of the American West—all from the sunny shores of the Gulf Coast at The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art. As you enter, through a recreated sandstone canyon, let the calming, earthen colors of the West soothe and guide you through these story-rich halls. 

Opened in 2018 by Tom and Mary James, The James Museum is dedicated to sharing important stories and intersections of the diverse peoples, wildlife and breathtaking landscapes that make the American West one of the most intriguing regions in the world. 

Themes throughout the eight distinct galleries include Native artists, seasons, wildlife, cowboys, the sky, journeys, community and more. The James’s robust art collection includes hundreds of works, many by living Native American artists from the Southwest, as well as contemporary Western paintings that feature historical depictions. 

One stunning sculpture, “The Providers,” by Dave McGary, portrays the intensity of the mounted Plains Indians during the summer buffalo hunt. You’ll also find impressive jewelry, artifacts, and sculptures throughout the galleries.

Get an up-close look at the intricate glass-blowing process during a demonstration at the Morean Glass Studio, part of the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg’s Central Arts District.

Try your hand at the process by signing up for one of the studio’s classes and leave with your own ornament, glass flower, or paperweight. Classes include one-on-one instruction with one of the studio’s experienced demonstration artists. 

Morean Arts Center, which has local roots dating back to 1917, is also home to a permanent Dale Chihuly collection, the only of its kind curated specifically for the building that houses the pioneering glass artist’s unique work. 

Special events take place throughout the year at the studio, including a Great Glass Pumpkin event and Night Glow workshop around Halloween, ornament-making shops for the holiday season, and artist talks with cocktails at the Chihuly Collection. 

Leave with a keepsake or great gifts for others: Everything made in the studio is for sale in the adjacent shop.

When longtime artist and collector Trish Duggan wanted to open a museum in St. Pete that would enrich and inspire the lives of visitors, she decided to feature her favorite medium: glass.   

The Imagine Museum displays hundreds of works of contemporary glass art, representing artists from across the globe, from Japan and Australia to Sweden and beyond.

One stand-out is British-American artist Anthony James’s “Portal Icosahedron,” a massive, 20-sided geometric centerpiece made from steel, glass and LED lights. In another gallery, Duggan’s own “1000 Prayers for Compassion” is a site-specific installation that features one thousand glass heads of the Chinese goddess of mercy in a poignant effort to inspire compassion. 

The collection also includes a white, wiry starburst of flameworked and blown glass by Laura Donefer, one of her popular “amulet baskets.” Canadian artist Shelley Muzylowski Allen’s “See Bear” is a work of blown, engraved, and hand-sculpted glass that shows a polar bear on a pedestal of ice.

A 6-foot-tall shrimp cocktail, spinning shrimp disco ball, plus sculptures and animations of the tasty crustaceans fill a psychedelic gallery space at The Fairgrounds. The art installation, called “Shrimpfinity" is the work of MILAGROS Collective, a St. Petersburg-based artist group known for their site-specific works.

The Fairgrounds is just one element of The Factory, a creative hub in the Warehouse Arts District. The art center regularly hosts interesting artistic and immersive experiences, including gallery crawls that feature every medium from textile art to tapestries, and more.

The Factory is also home to over a dozen local artists’ galleries, a new museum dedicated to motherhood, Daddy Kool Records shop, creative co-working spaces, and venues that present lively comedy shows, book sales, open mic nights, and more. 

Storytelling, late-night films, and gallery openings are all features of the monthly Art Walk, held at The Factory, and throughout St. Pete, every second Saturday, from 5 to 9 p.m.

Along the shores of Lake Maggiore, Spanish moss drips from towering live oaks, which mingle with red maples and Florida's signature palms to create a lush, shady landscape just south of downtown St. Petersburg. 

Follow the boardwalks and walking trails at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve and encounter diverse natural ecosystems through more than five miles of themed paths, like the Swamp Woodlands Trail and the Willow Marsh Trail. 

But there’s more than just gorgeous surroundings in this park. Whimsical creatures sculpted by longtime St. Pete resident and artist Paul Epping are peppered throughout the grounds, including a large-scale armadillo made out of car bumpers and an egret in flight.  

Head over to the aviary, which features birds of prey that were injured and rehabilitated, but cannot be released back into the wild. Here, you’ll meet Nyx, a great horned owl, plus a bald eagle, vultures, hawks, and an American kestrel.

In Pinewood Cultural Park in Largo, just next door to the Florida Botanical Gardens and Heritage Village, The Gallery at Creative Pinellas is an intimate creative space that features exhibits and performances by local emerging artists and guests.

Located in the former Gulf Coast Museum of Art, The Gallery is home to rotating exhibits curated by staff of Creative Pinellas, a local non-profit arts agency, as well as members of the arts community. The 10,000-square-foot space also plays host to literary readings, jazz performances, curator tours, poetry slams and more.

Open Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m., the space also participates in the cultural complex’s weekly Third Saturdays at Pinewood and annual art shows.

If Willy Wonka, the munchkins of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland teamed up to create an otherworldly destination in Florida, it might look something like Whimzeyland. 

Local artists Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda have dedicated 20 years to the “Whimzey-fication” of their Safety Harbor home, where teals and magentas and other splatter-painted hues combine to create a fantastical location, originally known as “the Bowling Ball House.” 

Colored glass bottles create trees and gardens, and a rainbow mosaic of curlicue paths winds around the premises. On the lawn, lush plants and palms mingle with a boat filled with flowers, leis and the couple’s signature wire sculptures.

Not only did they deck out their home, the couple also created the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center, a nonprofit that works to promote fine arts, visual arts, ​and performing arts. 

Take a 90-minute guided tour and marvel at the many plexiglas sculptures, paintings, recycled material sculptures and bowling balls.

In 1969, a group of five strong-willed women from the local Junior Service League banded together to form a community arts center. Their vision took root, and six years later, the Dunedin Fine Art Center opened just north of Clearwater. Originally just 2,000 square feet, today the cultural hub covers nearly 50,000 square feet across three distinct locations throughout the area.  

At the main location, explore six galleries where visitors can expect to see anything from the whimsical paintings of Nancee Clark and Amy Santoferraro’s sculpture made from repurposed kitsch, to works of art depicting pets, robots, flowers, and more, by local schoolchildren. 

Vibrant neon blocks, larger-than-life crayons, games, and more fill the hands-on gallery space in the children's museum. Work in a toy builder’s shop with popular throw-backs like Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, or play a life-sized game of Connect Four. Kids can also create at the Lite Brite table, play with watercolors, and even dance with robots in the green-screen theater. 

Deeply committed to arts education, the center also offers youth classes, a teen art club, summer camps, and more. For adults, art talks and coffee conversations take place regularly, as well as film screenings, lectures, and other events.

In a lakeside building on the Tarpon Springs campus of St. Petersburg College, the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art features eight permanent galleries spotlighting modern and contemporary works. 

The museum is named after its original benefactor, abstract expressionist Allen Leepa, and also features works by his stepfather, Abraham Rattner, and Leepa’s mother, Esther Gentle. Leepa donated the collection to the college in 1997. 

Rattner, a New York-born figurative expressionist, was known for his vibrant paintings that often depicted religious scenes. Esther Gentle was a printmaker, sculptor and painter. View the sculptures, works on paper, paintings, tapestries and stained glass of these artists throughout the galleries. 

When the Gulf Coast Museum of Art closed in 2009, the Leepa-Rattner Museum assumed much of its collection, including works by 19th-century American artist George Inness, along with paintings, sculptures, mixed-media, contemporary glass, and more from prominent 20th- and 21st-century Florida and southeastern artists. 

Prints and other works by famous names Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and George Rouault are included in the collection, as well as a bronze head by pioneering sculptor Henry Moore. The museum also hosts special exhibits and features interactive galleries and a store.