The Vero Beach Museum of Art was created by the non profit Alliance for the Arts, established in 1978 to create a regional center for appreciating art and teaching art and humanities. The group was able to raise 2.5 million dollars to open a museum in Riverside Park on January, 31, 1986, named Center for the Arts. In 1999 an expansion doubled the square footage of the museum to 54,509 feet. In 2002 the name of the museum was changed to the Vero Beach Museum of Art. In 2007 an outdoor sculpture park was built and in 2011 a new atrium and museum entrance were added. A 20,000 foot new collection wing was added bringing the total museum space to 75,000 square feet. Today the museums sees 75,000 visitors annually, primarily from the tri county area.

I was able to visit this museum for free with the Bank of America program that grants free admission to certain cultural institutions in Florida and all over the country on the first weekend of every month. For program details and participating locations check their website. All you need to do is show the ticket window your Bank of America card.

The museum is small but very nice. During my visit they were hosting two temporary exhibits that I enjoyed, one of glass works, which is one of my favorite kinds of art, and another exhibit, A tribute to Christo & Jeanne-Claude: the Tom Golden Collection.

The glass exhibit was based around a piece called Lapis Blue Persian made in 1990 by one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly. I have been to a museum that is made up of entirely of his works so one piece kind of pales in comparison but I wasn't expecting to see it and it along with the other glass pieces it made for a interesting gallery.

The Christo & Jeanne-Claude exhibit starts out front with a wrapped piece in front of the museum. I actually learned a lot about them from this exhibit. I only knew them from The Gates in Central Park and some of their other large scale works where they floated material around islands or put up curtains in valleys. Seeing their fully scale works could not obviously compare to this exhibit but it was still interesting to learn about them and see some of their sketches. The exhibit had a piece of curtain hung from one of their previous art works. I didn't know they wrapped small scale objects too and some of those pieces were on display. Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009 and Christo last year so this was a nice tribute to them. Their large scale genius will be missed. I love that their son is an animal rights activist and documentary film maker. Christo & Jeanne-Claude fans can pick up books about them in the museum gift shop.

In addition to the temporary exhibits, the museum has their own permanent collection. One of my favorite pieces was the humorous Gallery Guard, Seated II by Marc Sijan. He looked so realistic! After exploring the indoor galleries I walked around the delightful sculpture garden located outside in the back of the museum. If you live nearby you can purchase a membership which helps to support the museum. I had a very nice visit here and highly recommend stopping in to see what might be new.