When Miami collectors Don and Mera Rubell began buying art in 1964, they spent $25 on contemporary art for every $100 Mera earned as a teacher in New York. More than 40 years later, the vast Rubell Family Collection — housed, in part, in a 45,000-square-foot former DEA warehouse in Miami — has garnered international renown. A taste comes to the Tampa Museum of Art this week in the form of paintings by Eberhard Havekost, a 40-year-old German realist, and works in new media by six artists, including South Africa's William Kentridge. A third exhibit, opening next week, showcases a 2004 Rubell gift to the museum of 91 paintings — only a fraction of which will be on display — by self-taught Miami artist Purvis Young (whose work is also featured in the current folk art show at St. Pete's Museum of Fine Arts). Eberhard Havekost 1996-2006: Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection and Memorials of Identity: New Media from the Rubell Family Collection, April 14-July 8; and Purvis Young: Painted Protests, April 21-July 22, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun., 600 N. Ashley Drive, Tampa, $8 adults/$6 seniors and military/$3 students and children (ages 6 and younger enter for free), 813-274-8130, tampamuseum.com.
