SHTETL IN THE SUN AN ANDY SWEET EXHIBITION

THE JEWISH MUSEUM OF FLORIDA -FIU

Shtetl in the Sun: Andy Sweet’s South Beach 1977-1980. The exhibition celebrates the legendary photographer’s work in the late 1970s capturing the colorful elderly Jewish community in South Beach, before his death at a young age. Andy Sweet (1953-1982)’s work was almost lost forever, and was rescued thanks to the work of his sister, Ellen Sweet Moss, and her husband Stan Hughes. The exhibition will feature an intimate look inside the artist’s working process, with more than 60 images, plus original photographs that have never been shown, handpicked by Sweet’s family exclusively for this museum show.

South Beach was predominantly a Jewish enclave in the late 1970s when Andy Sweet photographed the elderly population, and many of the residents were New York transplants and Holocaust survivors. Before preservationists rescued the Art Deco buildings and designated the district onto the National Register of Historic Places, before Miami Vice transformed Miami’s image worldwide, and way before the hip and trendy renaissance of the area, South Beach was home to the largest number of Jewish retirees in America.