JEFF WHIPPLE ART MUSEUM AND SPASM GALLERY, Seventh Avenue at 16th Street, Centro Ybor, Tampa (813-223-6190). Tampa-based Whipple heads up a new ongoing cultural attraction within Centro Ybor that traces 30 years of his career via nearly 200 paintings and drawings. Within the museum is the Spasm Gallery, which features new exhibits each month. Regular hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun.; admission is $5.
LEEPA-RATTNER MUSEUM OF ART, 600 Klosterman Road, SPC-Tarpon Springs Campus, Palm Harbor (727-712-5762). Much of the museum's permanent collection includes works by figurative expressionist Abraham Rattner (1893-1978) and his stepson, Allen Leepa (b. 1919). LRMA currently hosts Dorothy Gillespie: Shaping Sculpture, a collection of 29 works — on loan from Virginia's Radford University Art Museum — that serves as a 50-year retrospective of Gillespie's career, through May 28. Upcoming exhibits held in conjunction with international fiber conference Convergence 2008 Tampa Bay are California Dreaming: California Fibers at Convergence 2008, a juried exhibit of contemporary fiber arts from the California Fibers Guild; and Tapestries of Abraham Rattner: Created at the Mambush Artists' Village in Israel, which features seven tapestries from LRMA's permanent collection, June 8-Aug. 3, with an opening reception 7-9 p.m. Sat., June 7 ($10). 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (open until 9 p.m. Thurs.), 1-5 p.m. Sun. Admission is $5 adults, $4 seniors (free for children and students). spjc.edu/central/museum.
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, 255 Beach Drive N.E., St. Petersburg (727-896-2667). MFA's impressive permanent collection contains approximately 4,600 works extending from antiquity to today; artists represented include Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, O'Keeffe, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Avedon and Adams. Current exhibits include Unveiled: Rarely Seen Art from the Collection and Mrs. Stuart's Legacy, both offering a glimpse of treasures from MFA's permanent holdings, through Aug. 26 (Hazel Hough Wing); Revelations: Works by Self-Taught African-American Artists, through July 27; and Theater in Ancient Art: The William Knight Zewadski Collection, which features 40 Greek and Roman antiquities, through March 31, 2009. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Admission is $12 adults, $10 seniors, and $6 students with I.D. and ages 7-18 (free to children 6 and younger). fine-arts.org.
RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota (941-359-5700). If you're a local, you already know about it. If you're a tourist, you probably plan on seeing it. Here's what you can expect: in the permanent collection are works by Rubens, Poussin, Hals and others. More than 10,000 works are on display, as is Ca d'Zan, the winter residence of circus magnate John Ringling, and a work of art itself. Elsewhere on the grounds is the Circus Museum, which features costumes, a circus-in-miniature and the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth (filmed in Sarasota) running in a continuous loop. The Circus Museum's Tibbals Learning Center is also open, spotlighting Howard C. Tibbals' enormous miniature circus. Currently on display is Focus on Asian Art: Guanyin Personified, an exhibit of sculptures and images that focus on the Buddhist god of compassionate wisdom, Guanyin, and his representations in Asia, through June 15; Ringling Retro: Modern & Contemporary Art, which features some of the museum's most important modern and contemporary paintings and sculptures from the 1960s to the 1990s, and by artists that include Jules Olitski, Trevor Bell, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, Jackie Ferrara, Thomas Struth, and many others, May 10-Oct. 26; and in Phantasmagoria: Spectors of Absence, artists William Kentridge, Christian Boltanski, Regina Silveira and Jim Campbell use shadows and fog as an artistic medium, May 24-Aug. 10. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily. Admission is $19 adults, $16 seniors 65 and up, $6 children ages 6-17, students, military and teachers with valid I.D., and free for members. ringling.org.
SALVADOR DALÍ MUSEUM, 1000 Third St. S., St. Petersburg (727-823-3767). Featuring the most comprehensive collection of Salvador Dalí's works in the world, the museum holds several key masterworks that wear you out just looking at them. ("Hallucinogenic Toreador," anyone?) Visitors also get an excellent overview of Dalí's major themes, symbols, influences and inspirations. Currently, the museum presents Dalí & Film, which investigates the relationship between the art and films of Dalí with a collection of seven Dalí paintings from the museum's permanent collection, through June 1. An upcoming exhibit, Women: Dalí's View, consists of 70 paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints and objects from the permanent collection that trace the evolution of Dalí's depiction of women, from his early student days, to later when his wife Gala was his chief model and muse, June 13-Sept. 21. 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Wed. and Sat., 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs., 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Fri., noon-5:30 p.m. Sun. Admission is $15 adults, $13.50 seniors, military and police, $10 students, $4 children 5-9 (free admission for children 4 and younger; $5 admission 5-8 p.m. Thursdays). salvadordalimusuem.org.
