Punta Gorda Historic Mural Society

This is a Board of volunteers who vet artists and locations for public murals. Mural themes have to be the history of Punta Gorda. The Society will take members for a fee of $ 25 per year. In Punta Gorda, there are more than twenty installations by various artists.
When tourists first came in numbers to Florida after WWII, they passed Black painters standing beside their cars selling paintings of Florida beaches, poinciana trees in full bloom, and other Florida scenes. They were eventually called The Highwaymen and their work that sold from the trunks of cars for $ 10 or $ 20 is now worth five figures.
In the last decade, a new wave of Florida folk art has emerged. The tourists are now residents, and have banded into local committees to promote their rural towns and respective histories. Buildings are the new canvasses, and artists of varying skills (but good political connections maybe?) are painting scenes on local walls. In Central and north Florida, Palatka and Deland are destinations to see this phenom, with Lake Placid being the best organized and prolific.
Punta Gorda’s discovered this inexpensive way of making their town shine. They’ve even adopted Guy LaBree’s technique of hiding a detail in their murals for discovery by the viewer. LaBree got his idea from his Seminole buddies he grew up with. So his «little people» are hidden in not only the Lake Placid mural, but in LaBree’s other historical paintings as well.
Paint as public art in Punta Gorda is now fashionable. Some restaurants and stores are adding painted motifs in lieu of signage. It’s about a two mile loop around town to see the Mural Society’s babies. But don’t miss the way the rest of town jump on this painted wagon, too.