Sketchbook
Photography buffs have more than usual to be thankful for this month. The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts opened an edgier-than-usual exhibit of photographs by Len Prince last week. Skip over the photographer's celebrity portraits (unless you really like celebrities, of course) and head straight for the heart of the show: a collaboration between Prince and Jesse Mann, daughter of photographer Sally Mann, as model. Mann, a now-voluptuous beauty who appeared as a child in her mother's photographs, appears in a series of iconic poses — evocative of Botticelli's Venus and Man Ray's human violin, among others — that play on the boundary between camp and high art. For more information, go to fmopa.org.
Lakeland's Polk Museum of Art (polkmuseumofart.org) offers two exhibits of interest: Karsh, Leonard and Bagert: A Photographic Legacy and Digital Art in the Post-Digital Age: Works from Florida Faculty. Look for traditional portraiture by nationally and internationally known artists in the former and cutting-edge works by Florida teachers in the latter. And if you still haven't been to the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts' new building to see the exhibit Unveiled: Rarely Seen Art from the Permanent Collection, the show's works-on-paper component will hold particular appeal: a survey of 19th and 20th century photography, from Julia Margaret Cameron to Jerry Uelsmann. Go to fine-arts.org to learn more.
