Beachside Art Blooms in Miami

Lincoln Road is to Miami Beach what SoHo is to New York City. The pedestrian-only boulevard and side streets are lined with artists’ studios and galleries as well as boutiques, gift shops and cafes.

During the 1920s and ‘30s Lincoln Road was one of America’s poshest promenades, promising that era’s rich and famous the best in fine couture, furs and jewels. Park Avenue socialites and Hollywood celebrities congregated to snap up faddish fashion while they soaked up the sun.

Following the 1929 stock market crash and during the Great Depression, Lincoln Road lost its luster.

Society’s new glamour seekers looked elsewhere for glitter. Shops moved. And in the shadow of neglect, buildings were neglected.

About five years ago the Lincoln Road renaissance began, thanks in large measure to Ellie Schneiderman, a ceramist who thought the area’s old Art Deco buildings would be a perfect backdrop for South Florida’s burgeoning arts community.

Schneiderman, executive director of the South Florida Art Center, transformed run-down Lincoln Road into a contemporary arts colony.

Most Lincoln Road galleries and showrooms feature South Florida art and artists who use bold tropical colors and local subjects such as beach scenes and beach people.

Galleries, studios and boutiques are in a three-block span between Meridian and Lenox avenues, and along cross streets, especially Michigan Avenue.

The Meridian Avenue end of the mall is nearest the beach. Begin there. Stop first at Diamonds & Chicken Soup (No. 828), an art-wear boutique featuring the concepts, clothing and accessories of designer/owner Marcy Chariff.

Styles range from attractive hand-painted T-shirts (from about $45) to glitzy gauze and sequin evening attire (from about $200). Large ornate earrings (from $25) and other substantial accessories can be used to accent casual or dressy gear.

Carefully Chosen Gallery (No. 826) has high-tech or handcrafted gift items and home accessories. Drinking vessels, for example, range from Memphis-design mugs (about $30) to contemporary silver chalices (about $300). The shop also offers a large selection of traditional to modernistic menorahs.

Janet’s Art Supply (No. 827) is the local source for sketchbooks, paints and crayons.

Sculptor Julio Estrada (No. 835) shares studio space with four or five other Miami artists. The front-room gallery shows Estrada’s intriguing painted ceramic animals ($700 and up) and torsos ($900 and up). Estrada often works with animal bones that are painted and transformed into surrealistic creatures and masks.

Curras & Curras Ceramics (No. 837) sells the tableware, decorative bowls and tiled murals made by Ronald and Nelson Curras. The artists are twins who fled from Cuba to establish their pottery in Miami. Their work is reminiscent of ancient Greek ceramics, with dark, stark, highly-stylized figures painted over a lighter background.

The Curras brothers’ images include designed figures, flora and fauna silhouetted against the shapes of plates (about $30 and up), mugs (about $20 and up), bowls (about $50 and up), jugs ($60 and up), candlesticks ($30 and up), vases ($50 and up) and umbrella stands (about $150). Tiled murals, custom-made, cost $80 per square foot (or four tiles designed as a square).

Tom Seghi’s Studio (No. 841) shows the artist’s mixed-media works (about $2,800) that blend South Florida themes such as sky and beaches with bits of personal memorabilia. Seghi’s sensibility and unusual humor yield an appealing surrealism.

The Shape of Things to Come (No. 919) is a small gallery for objets d’art and furniture from the ‘30s to ‘50s. Look for standing lamps (about $450) with arched necks that are long enough to reach over deeply cushioned sofas (from $800) or retro high-tech tables (from $380). There are also Calderlike mobiles (from $30) that are spotlighted with Noguchi lamps ($200 and up).

Carel Gallery (No. 928), specializing in 19th- and 20th-Century paintings and has a collection of canvasses by Jean and Raoul Dufy (from $18,000) and other French masters.

Guillermo Gonzales (No. 932) makes jewelry and art objects out of old buttons, photographs, bits of fabric, strands of thread and other objects. Old perfume bottles are transformed into pendants (about $175), and old paint brushes become dolls (about $125).

Gonzales has earrings ($35 to $60) and necklaces ($45 to $500) made from pieces of old wood and crystals encased in silver globes ($75 to $90). The studio and showroom are in the old Travert & Hoffer Building, constructed in 1929. Original Art Deco display cases hold the collectibles.

Books & Books Inc. (No. 933), reputedly the top bookstore in Miami Beach, has all the best sellers, plus a selection of titles on the visual, decorative and performing arts. There is a good selection of books on Art Deco, with many hard-to-find titles covering design and architecture.

Maxim Fine Arts Gallery (No. 942) is the cooperative gallery affiliated with the South Florida Art Center. The gallery represents 16 painters, printers, sculptors and photographers with a broad range of styles.

Among them, Shirley Hood Loeffler paints realistic misty Everglades landscapes (from about $500 to $1,500). Anne E. Hemingway Feuer (Ernest’s niece) creates stained-glass panels with flamingos and/or abstract forms. Ralph Vonner’s huge and energetic canvasses depict beach and city scenes with a neo-German expressionist style.

Photographer Tad Cypen focuses primarily on nature and Lyn Pelham applies a photojournalistic approach to the human form. Phyllis Parker creates enormous pastel-colored triptychs (about $1,800) depicting local beach scenes, and Bob Adelson’s brush captures beach people.

Yana Beni’s stoneware vases and bowls (about $90) have a neo-Grecian look. Bradley Arthur uses common objects such as crowbars and clamps to sculpt fantastic high-tech, out-of-this-world birds (from about $50 and up) and other creatures.

Continuum Gallery (No. 1021) is the gallery for 13 artists. Emphasis is on abstracts, with boldly colored and large canvasses.

Erich Schenk’s Studio (No. 1022) is the creative den for a versatile Miami artist. Schenk enhances his photographically realistic canvasses with neon implants. These lit-up representations, including those of famous images such as heads of Caesar and figures from Michelangelo, are enormously popular in Miami. They sell for about $4,000 and up.

Sokolsky Center for Fine Craft & Sculpture (No. 1035-37) is a gallery for about 70 Miami artists. A rotating exhibition features about seven artists each month.

One of the best is Estelle Tieman, who makes large ceramic figurative sculptures of eccentric yet archetypical Miami characters. Tieman’s figure of an elderly women, for example, is dressed in a tutu ($1,200).

On Michigan Avenue don’t miss Bolero (No. 1631), a showroom for Art Deco objets d’art and home accessories, including armchairs ($200), electric fans ($85), vintage Bell telephones ($110) and working radios in their original wooden cabinets ($275).

Lillian Cuenca (No. 1633) is an artist with vision. Her canvasses present intense, impressionistic and somewhat abstracted city-scapes. Each has in it the image of a brooding dog. From $800 and up.

James E. Carey Art & Design (No. 1659) sells large, realistic hanging sculptures and mobiles of sailfish, dolphins and other sea creatures.