From a personal art collection to Florida’s largest museum

As the Norton Museum of Art celebrates its 85th anniversary, it’s safe to say its founder, Ralph Hubbard Norton, could not have imagined what his little museum would become.

The personal project embarked upon with his wife, Elizabeth, to share their art collection with the community has become one of the largest and most respected museums in Florida and a mecca that draws art lovers from around the world to West Palm Beach.

The Norton Museum, originally called the Norton Gallery and School of Art, was South Florida’s first art museum when it opened with free admission on Feb. 8, 1941, with about 160 pieces, primarily European, American, and Chinese art, from the Nortons’ personal collection. The goal, Norton said, was to “preserve for the future the beautiful things of the past” for “the education and enjoyment of the public.”

Ghislain d’Humières, who has been the Kenneth C. Griffin Director and CEO of the Norton since 2021, said, “Ralph Norton was a visionary. At the time he opened his museum, the population of West Palm Beach was just over 32,000. Palm Beach County had fewer than 80,000 residents and total state population was less than a million people. He saw the potential for the county, which is now home to more than 1.5 million residents, and a museum that now serves more than 140,000 visitors a year.”

The Nortons chose West Palm Beach for the museum because they wanted to reach a bigger audience. They wanted to share their art with the underserved community, many of whom worked on the island but lived in town. The West Palm Beach location felt more welcoming.

For support, Norton charmed the affluent Palm Beach community who shared his love of art. The museum was gifted with both art and money by people who appreciated Norton’s desire to show art to as many people as possible.

“Community support for the Norton and its programs has been critical to its continued growth,” d’Humières said. “We have partners in business and philanthropy who see the value our programming brings to the community.”

The generosity of local patrons can’t be understated. Over the years, significant gifts from generous patrons have kept the museum growing.

And Norton, a brilliant businessman whose fortune grew from his family’s Chicago-based Acme Steel company, set a precedent that’s become standard: He establish an endowment that would support the museum in perpetuity.

The endowment provided enough income to support the museum’s operating costs, and the principal could remain intact, ensuring the museum’s future. It was a novel idea at the time. For his forward thinking, Ralph Hubbard Norton was posthumously inducted into to the Florida Artist Hall of Fame in 1994.

Is that a museum? Getting lost along the business strip

The Norton Museum was never ostentatious, but the art deco structure designed by Marion Sims Wyeth was easy to miss. The entrance sat with its back to South Dixie Highway, where its white stucco exterior blended in with the rest of the commercial buildings.

In a project statement when he was preparing for the last renovation, the designer Lord Norman Foster said, “Over the years, the museum had lost its sense of identity in the neighborhood.” He said it was hard to tell what the building was.

Before the museum was hard to find. Today, it’s hard to miss.

After a sweeping $60 million renovation that flipped the entrance and gave the institution more dramatic scale, visitors are now greeted by Claes Oldenburg’s giant Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1998–99), a massive piece of nostalgia balanced on its edge in the new reflecting pool. The quirky sculpture draws mixed reactions and starts conversations.

At the museum’s opening, Norton said of Palm Beach, “I thought that I’d never be any nearer to paradise.”

Norton loved how the bright sunlight filtered through the palm fronds, dappling the ground and reflecting off the water at the eastern edge of the property. Art spilled onto the lawn, and nature spilled into the gallery, turning the campus into a museum set within a garden.

The new front entrance embraces that lush paradise, hugging an 80-year-old banyan tree, planted soon after the museum was finished.

The banyan tree, visible from the Shapiro Great Hall through a 30-foot window, inspired art inside, including “Icon,” a 40-foot long, 15-foot high tapestry by the artist Pei White that fills one wall. J. Rachel Gustafson, assistant curator at the Norton Museum of Art, told PBS the piece was created by the artist “in conversation with that banyan tree and in conversation with the space.”

Wide hallways and high ceilings, large airy spaces and well-placed windows, clean lines, hardwood floors, bright white baseboards and the saturated color palette of the walls all compliment the true stars: the incredible collection of art in the five curatorial departments — Chinese art, American art, photography, contemporary art, and European — which is displayed together on the first floor the museum for the first time in its history.

Outside, more than 272 trees and shrubs hand-selected by Foster + Partners’ landscape architect Neil Bancroft were planted, and the public Pamela and Robert B. Goergen Garden became home to a nearly a dozen modern and contemporary sculptures donated by the couple.

What’s next at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach?

But there’s a bit more growing to do. D’Humières says Foster + Partners assembled a masterplan for the campus so the museum can grow along with its community. “How much we grow and when we implement those plans depends on the community needs and the support for the project,” he said.

Right now, the focus is on exterior improvements. In February 2023, the Norton Museum received its first federal grant of $750,000 for structural and safety upgrades.

The master plan also calls for the lease of Pioneer Memorial Park, an underused swathe of city-owned land that runs like a wide green carpet from the museum and the Intracoastal Waterway, to create a cultural art park. In August 2025, city commissioners unanimously voted to declare Pioneer Memorial Park surplus land, which allowed administrators to negotiate a long-term lease with the museum.

The block-long grassy median will be enhanced with wide, shady walking paths adorned with signature sculptures. The Norton could also host special events there with a view of the Intracoastal.

City leaders agreed the enhancements would benefit residents and visitors, providing more green space and expanding access to the Norton’s nearly 7-acre campus.

Museums like the Norton aren’t just art repositories that look nice on a community’s résumé.

In a 2023 study designed to measure the value of museums on the overall well-being of visitors, the Institute for Learning Innovation found museums deliver an emotional, social and even physical boost and do it cost-effectively. As a joint statement from the 11 museums that participated in the study said, “… museums play a critical and unique role in supporting the well-being of the public.”

D’Humières agrees: “The Norton is a center of inspiration for South Florida as a whole. Our team works passionately every day to spark creativity, encourage lifelong learning, and broaden perspectives across the community. We can transform lives through art.”

A timeline of West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art

1940 Construction begins

Construction begins between South Olive Avenue and South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach on the Norton Gallery and School of Art founded by Ralph Hubbard Norton (1875-1953) and his wife, Elizabeth Calhoun Norton (1881-1947).

1941  The Norton opens to the public, and Gauguin sets the bar high

On Feb. 8, 1941, the Norton Gallery and School of Art opens to the public. The Art Deco building houses about 100 works.

Ralph H. Norton pays $25,000 for Paul Gauguin’s masterpiece, “Christ in the Garden of Olives” (1889). It is his most expensive acquisition to date. Today, it is considered priceless.

1942 Chinese carvings create the Norton’s bedrock

Norton buys a group of more than 50 Chinese carvings made from jade, rock crystal and lapis lazuli. Most date from the 18th and 19th centuries. These are some of the first artworks the Nortons acquired.

1943 Ann Weaver comes to town

Ann Weaver, a sculptor, applies for and is accepted for a position teaching sculpture at the Norton Gallery and School of Art starting in early 1943.

1945  Sheltering from the storm

The Norton becomes a designated storm shelter, and during an unnamed hurricane around Sept. 15, the wife of Lt. Carl Landau takes refuge there where a baby girl, Karen Gale Landau, is born.

1946  The artist Anne Weaver

A number of collectors in Palm Beach begin to take notice of Anne Weaver’s work and purchase several sculptures. The director of the Norton Gallery, Robert Hunter, buys two pieces: “Beauty Parlor” in 1946 and “Machine II” in 1947.

1947 A death

Elizabeth Calhoun Norton dies after what is widely described as “a long illness.”

1948 And a wedding

Ralph Norton marries the artist Ann Weaver, who is 34 years his junior. He promises not to try to change her and builds her a studio behind their house on Barcelona Road to prove it.

1953 Ralph Norton dies

Ralph Norton dies, leaving hundreds of pieces of art to the Norton Gallery of Art.

1961  Japanese woodblock prints are gifted to the Norton, significantly increasing its Asian Art collection.

1964 The Norton acquires Stuart Davis’ “New York Mural,” one of its most popular pieces.

1965 The heist

Thieves steal about 100 jade objects and antique jewelry. Burglars tie up the lone night watchman but place newspapers on the floor to keep him clean. Most of the stolen jade is recovered four months later in a residential garage in Hollywood, Florida. No arrests are made, though the FBI suspects it was a commissioned theft where the buyer backed out.

1971  The Norton acquires Jackson Pollock’s “Night Mist.”

1977 The Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens

Ann Norton creates a foundation to preserve her home and gardens just blocks south of the museum. The Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens are established for public enjoyment as an urban sanctuary for art, nature, and history.

1981  Inviting outside exhibits

The Norton hosts its first big blockbuster traveling exhibition, “The Armand Hammer Collection.” Lines wrap around the block.

1982 Ann Norton dies

Ann Norton dies of leukemia.

1990 Christina Orr-Cahall comes on board as director. She serves until 2009.

1995 Expansion begins with one wingThe Norton undergoes the first of three expansion projects. Centerbrook Architects and Planners design the $17 million expansion which adds a wing.

1997 Construction is completed in January on the expansion and new wing.

1999 Additional Japanese woodblock prints are gifted to the Norton, further expanding its Asian art holdings.

2001  Another expansion launched

A second, significant expansion begins.

2003 Norton becomes the state’s largest art museum

The Nessel Wing, a 45,000-square-foot, three-story wing on the southwest side of the museum named for shoe magnates Melvin and Gail Nessel, who donated $6 million, opens. With this expansion, the Norton becomes Florida’s largest art museum, surpassing the Ringling Museum on the state’s west coast.

2005  Elsie and Marvin Dekelboum gift the Norton with 19 paintings.

2008  Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo

Valerie Pascal Delacorte donates $1 million and 66 European sculptures and paintings including five Old Master paintings. The gift of works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo and others is called “transformational” by the Norton’s chief curator said at the time.

2010  New directorHope Alswang comes on board as director.

2011 Celebrating women

The Norton launches Recognition of Art by Women (RAW), an annual solo exhibition series that celebrates the contributions of living female painters and sculptors.

2012 Supporting photographyThe Norton institutes the Rudin Prize for Emerging Photographers, a biennial international award those on the leading edge who have not yet received a solo museum exhibition.

2013 A $60M makeover and expansionThe board approves a bold expansion enlisting the renowned London-based architectural firm of Foster + Partners to design a new building. At a cost of $60 million, the expansion will nearly double the gallery space and add an education center, auditorium and restaurant.

2015 Plans sharedThe museum reveals its detailed plans for the $60 million renovation, which includes a grand and modern entrance along South Dixie Highway and an additional 12,000 square feet of gallery space. Keurig Green Mountain coffee magnate Bob Stiller and his wife, Christine, who have homes in Palm Beach, New York City and Charlotte, Vt., make a lead gift of $5 million toward the renovation project.

2016 Breaking groundThe museum breaks ground. The plan includes adding a west wing and a new entrance into a great hall with 44-foot-high ceilings. This flex space will serve as a community living room, as well as a space for receptions. Architects transform a parking lot next to the museum into a 9,000-square-foot sculpture garden, plus add 12,000 square feet of gallery space, a 210-seat auditorium, 3,000 square feet of classroom space and a restaurant with outdoor dining.

2018 Largest gift to date and closing, temporarilyAmerican investor and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin donates $16 million to the Norton, the largest gift it had ever received.  Palm Beach residents Howard and Judie Ganek promised more than 100 works from their collection, dramatically expanding its Modern and contemporary art holdings in one fell swoop. Included were contemporary art paintings by Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, and Kara Walker.  The museum closes in July for renovations.

2019 The “New Norton” opens

The “New Norton” opens to the public on Feb. 9 with about 350 works on display. The $100 million expansion and “reimagining” of the museum is chronicled in a 248-page coffee table book with 400 stunning photos. “Ralph Norton and His Museum,” by Ellen E. Roberts, with a timeline of his life and collection by Lesley A. Wolff.

2020  Pandemic closes doors, but does not stem donations

The Norton closes for eight months because of the COVID-19 pandemic and reopens in November with new exhibits and safety precautions. Major gifts of American art are received, including 19th-century neoclassicism and impressionism and 20th-century realism and modernism by artists William Merritt Chase, Jared French, William Glackens, Childe Hassam, Jane Peterson, John Henry Twachtman, John Quincy Adams Ward, Andrew Wyeth and Hartwell Yeargans.  2021   “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection.”

Ghislain d’Humières comes aboard as the Norton’s new Kenneth C. Griffin Director and CEO. That fall, the museum begins to emerge from the pandemic, hosting the blockbuster exhibition “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection.”  2023 Safety grant

The Norton Museum receives $750,000 in federal funding for structural, safety improvements. It is the first federal money received.   2024 Director who oversaw Norton’s transformation dies

Hope Alswang, the woman who ‘transformed’ the Norton, dies on June 11 in Providence, Rhode Island, of pancreatic cancer. She was 77. “When I came I thought I’d take a somewhat sleepy museum and shake it up,” she told The Post in 2018. And she did.   2025  Acquisitions and gifts by the scores

In September, 80-plus artworks are added to the museum’s collection via a combination of acquisitions and promised gifts. Highlights include one of Fred Eversley’s parabolic lens sculptures; a 1981 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat; Mary Cassatt’s drawing “Mother Jeanne Nursing Her Baby”; and three new blue-and-white porcelain objects from the Qing dynasty.  2026  A birthday party

The Norton will host its Gala over the 85th anniversary weekend. Tickets are on sale for $750. This spring, the Norton will host its 10th iteration of RAW, with “Danielle Mckinney: Shelter “and a retrospective exhibition featuring works by the nine previous artists as it looks ahead to the next phase of the Foster + Partners master plan for the campus.

The Norton Museum of Art by the numbers

• Gallery space: 122,500 square feet.

• Collection: 8,620 artworks with 172 new pieces to the collection this year.

• In one year the museum…

• Visitors: Welcomed 113,339 visitors in the 2023-24 season.

• Free admission: Admitted 25,918 residents to visit for free.

• Volunteers: Had 49 docents and other volunteers who donated more than 12,000 hours.

• Tours: Conducted 1,112 tours, including 394 school tours.

• Students educated: More than 11, 000 students, with 5,375 participating in the Norton’s free Afterschool Arts Outreach.

• Programs: Offered more than 450 enrichment programs from free community days to lectures and concerts.

• Art After Dark: Hosted 52 consecutive Friday night celebrations of art.

• Partners: Partnered with 35 local nonprofits through the Community Access Program to expand public access to the museum.

Source: The Norton Museum of Art‘s impact report 2023-24

The Norton Museum of Art: Top 10 things to see

There is so much to take in at the Norton, it’s nearly impossible to choose just 10 things you should see. But we tried.

The Chihuly ceiling. With nearly 50 individual glass sculptures suspended and lit from above, the Dale Chihuly ceiling stands alone, unmatched in its timeless beauty. (There’s a ceiling in the lobby at the Bellagio in Las Vegas that’s also stunning, but the Norton’s is intimate and peaceful.) Sometimes, guests lie on the floor and are lost in colorful dreamworld.

Paul Gauguin’s “Christ on the Mount of Olives” (1889). Arts writer Chadd Scott wrote: This painting, which also serves as a self-portrait, may represent the crown jewel of the entire museum. A strong argument could be made that this is the most important piece of Modern art in the state of Florida and perhaps all of the Southeast.”

“Ruby Greene Singing” (1928). This portrait of a young gospel singer is James Ormsbee Chapin’s best-known work and is often asked for by name. The way her chin is raised, her lips loosely parted, the light and color of her dress and skin are captivating, and if a painting could sing, this one would.

Jackson Pollock’s “Night Mist” (1945) acquired in 1971. A dark spooky journey into Pollock’s psyche filled with mythic symbols, painted before he perfected the ‘drip method’ for which he’s best known, and which made him one of the world’s foremost abstract impressionists.

Stuart Davis’s “New York Mural” (1932) acquired in 1964. This is another work that people ask for by name. The American painter’s abstract city scape captures the Big Apple’s energy with iconic elements (the Empire State Building) and symbolism (Derby hats and bowties).

Duane Hanson’s “Young Worker” (1976). These life-size sculptures are realistic and lifelike, they’re sometimes mistaken for real people. The subjects are the ‘regular Joes’ of society.

The Chinese collection’s cobalt blue ceramics, important Chinese paintings (like by Tang Yin) and bronze ritual vessels.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Red Flower” (1919). This is a perfect example of O’Keeffe’s flower paintings. Red flowers from cannas to poppies were a favorite for their color, so rich and saturated it almost drips off the painting.

Claude Monet’s “Gardens of the Villa Moreno, Bordighera” (1884). Monet’s painting of the Italian Riviera highlights his brushwork as it captures yellow sunlight dancing on the deep green palms.

The exhibition “Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time.” This exhibition of work on loan from the Leiden Collection will be on view only until March 29, so you’ll need to go now if you want to see it. The exhibition is comprised of 75 works including more than a dozen paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn and the only painting by Johannes Vermeer in a private collection.

If you go

• The Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach.

• Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.

• Admission: General admission is $18 adults, $15 seniors aged 60 and older, $5 for students aged 13 and older, and free for age 12 and younger. Admission to Art After Dark is $10 for adults and seniors and $5 for students. Admission is free for members and for residents of West Palm Beach every Saturday.

• Of note: The Norton is a Blue Star Museum, so it offers free admission to active U.S. military including the National Guard and Reserves and their families. The museum also offers free admission for veterans and Florida teachers as well free Saturday and Sunday admission for Bank of America cardholders the first full weekend of each month. Photo IDs are required.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach celebrating 85th anniversary