Florida Highwaymen at Bay Preserve

Name: Florida Highwaymen at Bay Preserve
Start: 2025-02-01T11:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-02-01T15:00:00-05:00
Location: 400 Palmetto Ave, Osprey, FL, United States, Florida 34229

Schedule

Sat Feb 01 2025 at 11:00 am to 03:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

400 Palmetto Ave, Osprey, FL, United States, Florida 34229 | Osprey, FL

From the early 1950’s through the 1980’s a group of twenty-six African-American artists known as the Florida Highwaymen used vivid and bright colors to paint scenes of beautiful, untouched Florida. Excluded from showing their work in galleries or museums in Jim Crow era Florida, they piled their paintings into the trunks of their cars and sold them along US Highway 1.
It is our great pleasure to invite you to meet a collective of Florida Highwaymen legacy members to experience a special one-afternoon-only exhibition of their stunning art. Four artists will be in attendance with artwork available for purchase. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Big Waters Land Trust. Cash or check are preferred – not all artists are able to accept credit cards.
This is a free, drop-in event taking place from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. We do ask that you register if you are planning to attend. Additional details will be provided via email as the event approaches.
Parking is offsite at First Baptist Church of Osprey and Victory Baptist Church. Trolleys will be running on a loop to transport guests from the parking area to Bay Preserve.
We will have two food trucks onsite with tasty options the whole family will enjoy! Staff from Big Waters will also be present with fun activities for kids and to answer any questions you may have about our work.

Learn more about each of the esteemed artists in attendance below.
Curtis Arnett
Born in 1950 in Greenville, Florida, Curtis Arnett moved to Fort Pierce in 1955. One of the youngest Highwaymen, Arnett was just a young boy when he first encountered the group’s credited founder, Alfred Hair, when Hair gave a painting demonstration at the Lincoln Academy where Arnett was a student. He began painting as a youth and sold his first painting when he was only sixteen. He first painted the tropical scenes typical of the Highwaymen, but now creates landscapes of central Florida.
Arnett was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004, is the father of four children, and is still a resident of Fort Pierce today. He is a sought-after speaker and teacher, and his work has been featured in countless galleries throughout Florida and beyond.
Doretha Hair Truesdell
Doretha Hair Truesdellwas the wife of Alfred Hair. She learned to paint at his side, where she watched and joined a group of self-taught black artists who went on to now have paintings hanging in the White House, the Smithsonian, the state capital, and internationally. She began teaching in 1967 to augment their family’s income and continued to paint the backgrounds of her husband’s paintings at night along with her now deceased younger brother, Highwaymen Carnell Smith, after he came to live at their Dunbar Street house. After her husband was killed in 1970, she continued her painting career, exhibiting art of her own, Alfred’s, and other Highwaymen around the state.
Truesdell is a founding member and president of the non-profit Original Florida Hall of Fame Highwaymen, Inc., CEO of Doretha Hair Highwaymen, LLC., Member of the Board of Directors at the A. E. Backus Museum, Fort Pierce, Florida, member of the Fort Pierce Woman’s Club, St. Lucie County Cultural Alliance, Arts and Culture Advisory Board for the City of Fort Pierce. She is a Young Floridian Judge for the Arts for the St. Lucie County Chamber of Commerce Scholarship Program and a participant in the St. Lucie County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Program.
Roderick Hair
Roderick Hair has been an artist for as long as he can remember. Although he is the son of one of the founding members of the Florida Highwaymen, Alfred Hair, Roderick’s passion for art was less about the influence in his father’s legacy and more about his innate desire to create. Roderick was three years old when his father died, and he found his first love of art at the age of seven, through sketching. However, possessing a sensory aversion to the sound of a pencil sketch, he insisted from day one to use an ink pen as his tool (without the ability to erase). This inability pushed and frustrated him at times; yet he found solace in drawing and rebelled at any outside pressure to walk in his father’s footsteps.
Throughout Rodrick’s young life, he discovered his own confidence, connection, and love for art in a way that only belonged to him, “his way”, through sketching and drawing alone. The discovery of his passion to paint came much later. Married, and with a three-year son of his own, Roderick was also shot – but his fate led to a long recovery and relearning everything he had once taken for granted. A bullet is still lodged in his head, yet he has found that his same stubborn persistence led him through each step of relearning to talk, walk, and ultimately transitioning abilities to be open minded to discover a new form of expression through paint.
Mary Ann Carroll, represented by her daughter, Kandie Ingram
At the age of nine, Mary Ann Carroll moved from Georgia to Fort Pierce, where as a teenager she met Harold Newton. She watched Newton paint a Poinciana tree and immediately was drawn to the medium. Newton helped Carroll with her first painting, after which she went home to her mother’s backyard and began developing her skills. Carroll owned a 1964 Buick Electra, which she drove around the state to such places as Miami, Jacksonville, and Okeechobee to sell her paintings.
After her husband left, she raised seven children, and held many odd jobs to supplement her income. Since the revival of interest in the Highwaymen, her paintings are now in great demand, noted for her use of vivid colors. In addition to being an accomplished painter, Carroll was a musician and gospel singer and could be found on Sundays preaching and singing at her own ministry in Fort Pierce. In 2011, she presented a painting to Michelle Obama at the First Lady’s Luncheon in Washington, D.C.
Mary Ann Carroll passed away at the age of 79 in December 2019. Her daughter Kandie will be in attendance to present Mary Ann’s original art.
Discover more about the esteemed artists attending the event and reserve your spot today by registering through the link below.