Attending an event featuring the Florida Highwaymen is like visiting a combination Art Gallery, Collectibles Show and Class Reunion! Recently a "Highwaymen Art Exhibit and Event" was held at the Safety Harbor Community Center. The special one-day show gave interested folks a chance to meet twelve or more of the original 26 Highwaymen, along with some of their artistically inclined descendants.

Here's a little background on this unique group of American artists: Back in the 1950s, along the rural, segregated southeast coast of Florida, a loosely-knit group of black teenagers began to paint the scenery they saw around them. They worked quickly, mostly without formal art training. These young black men, (and one young black woman,) became the originators of a brand new type of folk art. Of course, it wasn't called "folk art" back then. The colorful paintings of palm trees and beach vistas and moonlit rivers were often dismissed as "motel art."

The mostly self-taught artists admittedly strove for quantity over quality. The idea wasn't to create painstaking masterpieces, but to produce affordable paintings for, ordinary people. The young artists were poor, and it didn't take them long to figure out that painting offered a fine opportunity to get away from the drudgery of the citrus groves and tomato fields. They marketed their work from the trunks of old cars, up and down US Highway 1. Thirty-five dollars was the going rate for a painting, crudely framed in carpenter's molding and often still wet.

Around forty years later, Jim Fitch, director of The Museum of Florida's Art and Culture, "discovered" the regional art. It was Fitch who coined the term "Highwaymen, denoting artists selling paintings from automobile trunks along the highway. Fitch believes that during the 50s, 60s and 70s the Highwaymen, between them, produced upwards of 50,000 paintings! Some experts believe the figure is higher. So far, 26 artists have officially been declared "Highwaymen," but every so often another one shows up. At the recent Sunday event, some of that original group of artists, now mostly in their 60s, gathered to display their current works, and to joyfully greet one another.
Some were accompanied by their artistically inclined grown children, who are sometimes introduced as "second generation Highwaymen."

In 2001, Florida author Gary Monroe wrote The Highwaymen - Florida's African American Landscape Painters (University Press of Florida, $29.95) Folks who regularly attend Highwaymen events often carry a copy of the book, and the artists always graciously sign the full color reproductions of their work. The Safety Harbor event was a bonanza for those of us who seek to meet and obtain autographs from as many Highwaymen as possible! At the time of the book's publication there were thought to be 21 Highwaymen. Within' recent years that figure was updated to include 26 artists.

Several of the best-known members of the group were on hand. Robert L. Lewis was there. So was Roy McClendon, Curtis
Arnett, Isaac Knight, Sylvester Wells and Willie Reagan. But so was Al Black, who has rarely been available for these events. Jimmy Stovall is called "the twenty-seventh Highwayman," and the most recent re-discovered Highwayman" is Earl Barber who was visiting from California when he learned that he too, is among the special few to bear the name. He's referred to as "the Lost Highwayman."

The days of the $35 Highwaymen paintings, unless you happen to luck out at a yard sale, are long gone. Today, the artists price their paintings mostly in four figures. Most of the paintings we saw on display at the Safety Harbor Show
were in the $1500 to $3000 range.

Highwaymen events at the safety Harbor Museum have become an annual happening. The artists also often appear at "The Florida Show" which is held twice a year at the St. Petersburg Coliseum. Some antiques shows and a number of art galleries also promote Highwaymen events.

For information about upcoming shows and appearances along with information on obtaining a Highwaymen video, Monroe's book and relevant materials, try www.thefloridahighwaymen.com