I In Florida - Landscape Photography Inspired by the Florida Highwaymen

In the summer of 2009, we spent a few months in the DeLand, New Smyrna Beach and Daytona Beach areas of Florida. We were visiting Galleries and Bookstores on Main St. in DeLand when my wife picked up a book about the Florida Highwaymen. They were a group of 26 black artist that began painting Florida Scenery in Oils on Upson Board in the 1950's and 60's out of Fort Pierce, Florida. As this was still the era of segregation, they could not sell their work through normal channels. Their work was sold along the highways, door to door and to businesses in Florida. In 1994, art aficionado, Jim Fitch, coined the name and assigned it to this unknown group of black artist. Today they artwork has been rediscovered and the popularity of Highwaymen Art has never been stronger. I was intrigued with their paintings and I began searching out areas of Central Florida that was commonly depicted in their work. Their paintings were mainly of rural areas with lots of palms, birds, lakes and rivers. They also over saturated the colors in many of their paintings.

This book shows photos of original Florida Highwaymen Art courtesy of Bob LeBlanc, a Florida dealer in Highwaymen Art, and my own photography.