Free and cheap events at Wolfsonian on Miami Beach

Sketching in the Galleries

Tap into your inner artist by sketching in our galleries! Drawing materials, gallery stools, and professional bilingual instruction provided to participants of all ages and skill levels. English/Spanish. Free and open to the public; walk-in basis, no RSVP required

Weekly on Fri | 6–6:45pm

Free Friday Guided Tours

Learn more about The Wolfsonian and related art and design themes during a 45-minute free guided tour of the building, collection, or exhibitions. New guides bring different perspectives each week! Free and open to the public

Through Feb 2
Cuban Caricature and Culture: The Art of Massaguer
With his biting political satire, celebrity caricatures, and magazine and advertising illustrations, graphic artist Conrado Walter Massaguer (1889–1965) helped shape the visual culture of his native Cuba between the 1920s and 1950s. This installation of works recently gifted to The Wolfsonian Library by Vicki Gold Levi will bring forth Massaguer’s legacy through dozens of works, from images of the “New Woman” flapper ideal (the so-called “Massa-girls”) in his magazine Social to depictions of tropical paradise for the Cuban Tourist Commission. Massaguer’s transnational reach will be shown in his covers for Collier’s and Life, while cartoons of visiting dignitaries and Hollywood stars will reveal how he rubbed shoulders with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, and the King of Spain—all evidence of an artist at the center of Havana’s cosmopolitan culture in the decades before the Cuban Revolution.

NEW! Through January 26

Caricaturas
Caricature combines portraiture with satirical wit and style. In conjunction with Cuban Caricature and Culture, our installation about Conrado Walter Massaguer—one of the leading practitioners of the form in Latin America—this display from our library collection presents works of his contemporaries from Mexico and his native Cuba, where caricature was especially vital in the early and mid-twentieth century, promoting celebrity culture and contributing to political critique. The caricatures on display include such revered and reviled world leaders as President Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth II, Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler; celebrities like George Bernard Shaw, Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, Diego Rivera, and Charlie Chaplin; and portraits and self-portraits of famous caricaturists like Miguel Covarrubias and Xavier Cugat.

Through September 30
Cover Girls
The brainchild of publisher, illustrator, and art director Conrado W. Massaguer, Social set the tone for Cuban values and taste in the early 20th century. From the 1920s into the 1950s the influential magazine launched the careers of numerous Cuban artists and popularized a bold Art Deco aesthetic, particularly in its depictions of young women—flapper types who showed off the fashion, makeup, and hairstyle trends of the time.

Many of Massaguer’s original Social covers are displayed in Cuban Caricature and Culture: The Art of Massaguer, an installation of recent gifts by collector Vicki Gold Levi to The Wolfsonian Library. Shown along the museum’s 10th Street facade is just a taste of these covers, presented alongside two of Miami artist Andres Conde’s contemporary reinterpretations of Massaguer’s historic “ideals.” More work by Conde will be featured in Deco Fashion: Painted Illustration, an exhibition opening September 19, 2019, at the Art Deco Museum located just two blocks away from The Wolfsonian on Ocean Drive.

Ongoing
Deco: Luxury to Mass Market
“Art Deco” has come to evoke a set of styles that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s out of aspirations to fuse art and industry into a modern language of design. From exquisite handcrafted objects to streamlined household appliances, the items on display in Deco will demonstrate how American designers adapted a style associated with European luxury to the demands of industrial mass production. Through decorative arts, product design, architecture, and graphics from the Wolfsonian collection, the exhibition will trace Art Deco’s origins in Europe, its migration to the United States, and its evolution into a fully American style—perhaps most spectacularly realized on Miami Beach in the 1930s.

Deco: Luxury to Mass Market is made possible by Diane and Alan Lieberman and the South Beach Group, with the support of Jamestown, L.P., and Saul and Jane Gross and Streamline Properties.

Ongoing
Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections from the Wolfsonian Collection
These galleries provide an overview of the museum’s holdings of American and European artifacts from 1850 to 1950. Culled from The Wolfsonian collection are approximately three hundred works in a variety of formats, ranging from books, posters, and postcards to decorative arts, architectural models, paintings, and sculptures. Focal points include design reform movements, urbanism, industrial design, transportation, world’s fairs, advertising, and political propaganda. Inaugurated in November 1996, this ongoing exhibition is periodically updated.