South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
With the Norton Museum of Art undergoing its renovation, we compare its art and amenities with NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and Perez Art Museum Miami.
On Feb. 9, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach will re-open to the public with a $100 million facelift and a raft of new amenities. But how does the museum’s new upgrades measure up against South Florida’s two other major contemporary-art museums, the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and the Perez Art Museum Miami?
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale
Location: 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-525-5500 or NSUArtMuseum.org
Architect: Edward Larrabee
Barnes
Amenities: At 83,000 square feet, NSU’s downtown building is leaner and older (built in 1986), but no less impressive, with 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, a café, museum store and 256-seat auditorium. The museum recently marked its 60th anniversary in South Florida.
Jewels of the collection: There are many, with 7,000 works housed in its permanent collection, including 500 pieces by New York modernist painter William Glackens that fill the museum’s upstairs Glackens Wing. There’s also a collection of post-World War II artworks from avant-garde CoBrA (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) artists, plus pieces by Ana Mendieta, Catherine Opie, Tracey Emin, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Frank Stella, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Norton Museum of Art
Location: 1451 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach; 561-832-5196 or Norton.org Architect: Lord Norman Foster
Amenities: The Norton’s $100 million upgrade features 133,000 square feet, with 13,300 square feet of new gallery space, a great hall and coffee bar, an education center with two classrooms, a room showcasing a Dale Chihuly glass ceiling, a restaurant and a 210-seat auditorium, and an event lawn space framed by a sculpture garden.
Jewels of the collection: Along with 700 works in the museum’s Chinese art collection (some dating back 3,200 years), museum highlights include paintings by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock, and moremodern works by Phyllida Barlow, Nick Cave and Jenny Saville.
Perez Art Museum Miami
Location: 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-375-3000 or Pamm.org
Architect: Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron
Amenities: The 200,000-square-foot contemporary-art museum, which opened in 2013, is the big anchor of the 29-acre Museum Park in downtown Miami. Beyond a sculpture garden in the park, the Perez boasts hanging vertical gardens designed by botanist Patrick Blanc; a charming Bayfront restaurant, Verde; a library, classrooms and media lab; shaded terraces and an east portico event space; and a 231-seat auditorium that doubles as a second-floor staircase.
Jewels of the collection: More than 2,000 artworks sit in the museum’s permanent collection, including pieces from Africa, Asia, Western Europe and Latin America. Big-ticket artists in the collection include Kiki Valdes, Purvis Young, Frank Stella, Kehinde Wiley, Joseph Cornell and Beatriz González.
pvalys@southflorida.com or 954-356-4364