Polk Art Museum, Lakeland Florida

     We made our first visit to the Polk Museum of Art, part of Florida Southern College in Lakeland Florida, on a recent Saturday and were quite happy to find a very interesting small museum. (https://polkmuseumofart.org/ )  There are plans for expansion to be completed in the spring of 2024 which will triple the museum's exhibition space.

    We were drawn to the Polk for its current exhibition of Rodin sculptures, through October 30, 2022. Auguste Rodin is generally considered the first modern sculptor, with his career stretching from the late 1800s into the early 1900s. He was extremely prolific, and his works are known around the world, among the most famous sculptures in the world like The Thinker, The Burgers of Calais, and The Kiss. He's one of my favorite artists, and I've been privileged to visit the Rodin House Museum in Paris and a great Rodin Museum in Philadelphia.  This collection was outstanding, including several smaller scale sculptures and 5 of the 6 individual Burgers of Calais. (Of course, these are relatively recent castings of Rodin's work. He usually concentrated his work on the clay originals, from which the metal castings are made.)

    One of the permanent exhibits at the Polk Museum of Art is a collection of Indigenous masks and other art work from various countries in Africa and from Papua New Guinea. They were quite interesting and beautiful.

    It was a great visit, and we look forward to future exhibits and the museum's expansion in the future.