For decades, Sarasota’s Beaux Arts Ball was the social event of the year. By the ‘50s, it had become so popular that it had to be moved from the Lido Casino to the Municipal Auditorium so spectators could buy tickets and watch the gala from the balcony. As part of its centennial celebration, Art Center Sarasota is bringing back this Beaux Arts extravaganza.
“In the ‘40s and ‘50s, the Beaux Art was an event held by the Sarasota Art Association,” noted Art Center Sarasota Executive Director Kathryn Ceaser. “This event at one point drew a thousand guests. This was a huge costume ball. So part of our paying homage to our legacy, we are relaunching this ball this March.”
The costumes weren’t just lavish. They were over the top. In 1955, Judy Axe had to enter the Municipal Auditorium on hands and knees in order to fit her peacock costume through the doorway. Ceaser hopes the costumes for next year’s Beaux Arts Ball will be just as extravagant.
“Our hope is that it generates a lot of attention not just for us, but for our community partners, for the culinary arts, for the performing arts, for all of the different pieces that we’re bringing together,” Ceaser said. “We just launched the teaser for that last week. So save the date. That will take place on March 21st.”
To get every detail just right, Art Center Sarasota is culling hundreds of old files, photographs and other artifacts from past balls.
“We have an incredible archivist that we’re working with,” Ceaser noted. “We also have robust county archives and we have family members of artists who used to display their work here who’ve brought in scrapbooks and pieces for loan. Some of the things we’re finding are real treasures, including some photographs from the original Beaux Art Ball.”
The Beaux Arts Ball will be held March 21, 2026.
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The Beaux Arts Ball had its beginnings at the Ringling School of Art in 1936. The chair of the Fashion Design Department, Guy “Pappy” Saunders, organized the event, which was so well received that it became an annual affair.
According to “The First Fifty Years — Ringling School of Art and Design” by Robert E. Perkins, before moving to Sarasota, Saunders was a well-known fashion and costume designer in New York City. While there, he had created costumes for everything from Sally Rand and Faith Bacon burlesque performances to the 1933 World’s Fair in New York City.
Sarasota Art Association, now Art Center Sarasota, took over the ball in 1948. With an assist by Saunders, SAA Board member and artist Helen Johnston organized the ball, which was held at the John Ringling Hotel. SAA members Jerry Farnsworth, George Kaiser, Hilton Leech and Ben Stahl served as costume judges. Jean Clark (later Jean Chase) took honors for best costume that year.
Because of its increasing popularity, the ball outgrew the John Ringling Hotel and it was moved to the Lido Casino in 1951 and finally to the Municipal Auditorium in 1952.
Tickets were sold to both participants and spectators, with the proceeds benefiting the Sarasota Art Association. As Helen Johnston put it, “what had started out as a fun affair became a ‘fund’ affair.”
One reason for the ball’s popularity among attendees and spectators were the costumes, led by Ringling alumni Bill and Judy Axe. From the 1950s, through the ‘60s and into the ‘70s, they invariably received top honors for the most beautiful and creative costumes. In addition to Judy’s peacock outfit in 1955, the couple dressed as Prospero and Ariel for the 6th Annual Beaux Arts Ball in 1953, dominoes in the 13th Annual Beaux Arts Ball in 1960 and Chinese wind chimes for the 14th Annual Beaux Arts Ball in 1961.
Costumes like these required an equally decadent setting, and so the organizers took pains to ensure that the decorations inside the venue were as spectacular as the attendees’ costumes. In 1955, for example, the decorations elicited “gasps of admiration” according to reporter Madge Perry. “The 40-foot mobile suspended from the ceiling had whirling, twirling female figures from Eve on up to now, comedy masks representing the mirth of the event and huge clusters of grapes suggestive of the bacchanalian spirit.”
That was merely the centerpiece.
“After the oohs and ahs toward this glitter group, the eyes went around to the big 6-by-9-foot murals which covered the windows way down to the floor,” Perry continued. “These were bold and beautiful, crazy and colorful, funny and fancy, naughty and nice. Just looking about, you knew you’d have wonderful fun at this party.”
Among the partiers that year were Gorgeous George, Grandma Moses, Toulouse Lautrec, Catwoman and a cyclops.
“We’re really researching the history of the ball,” Ceaser emphasized, noting that they’ve found archival material not just in the art center’s records, but in its storage unit as well.
“People have also been dropping off things they’ve found in their attics and garages,” she said, pulling out the yellowed pages of the newspaper that contained the Madge Perry article. “This is literally something that someone pulled out of their garage.”
Ceaser expects the motif for next year’s ball to reflect more of an art deco style.
“The ‘20s art deco vibe is more indicative of what you’d find 100 years ago when the Sarasota Art Association was first founded,” Ceaser observed. “So as we’re creating a lot of our collateral materials, we’re leaning into the black, gold and white and just making it really exciting.”
The historical material that the art center and its archivist are poring over also reveals that past Beaux Arts Balls included live music, dancing until well past midnight, a master of ceremonies, a parade marshal and “the Grand March,” which allowed everyone in costume to parade through the auditorium so that they could be judged by a V.I.P. panel that included “a banker, a lady artist, a museum director, a theater director and a circus director.”
Prizes were also awarded for best costumes. In 1955, $50 prizes were awarded to three winners, with $25 honorable mentions going to 10 others.
Each ball had a typically outlandish theme, such as “Mother Goose at the Ball” and “Gay Nineties.” Other themes included the Jungle Ball, Underseas Ball, Aztec Ball, Saints or Sinners and Arabian Nights.
Ceaser did not divulge the theme for next year’s Beaux Arts Ball.
While the ball continued in earnest during the beginning of the ‘60s, it faded out by the end of that decade. But the Ringling School of Art Library Association and the college’s alumni association brought it back in the ‘70s before it ending once more in the 1980s.
While Ceaser and Art Center Sarasota are bringing back the gala in celebration of the center’s centennial, there have also been a couple of recent reenactments of the Beaux Arts Ball.
In 2018, the center revived the event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its iconcept runway show fundraiser. In keeping with the Beaux Arts tradition, guests to that year’s iconcept runway show were encouraged to don elaborate costumes and show them off on the dance floor during the event’s after party.
The ball returned in 2019 as part of the 11th iconcept fashion show, held at Art Ovation Hotel in downtown Sarasota.
“For us, we’re thrilled,” said Ceaser. “We debated whether we wanted to go all in and plan another ball.”
The Beaux Arts Ball returns on March 21, 2026.
Art Center Sarasota was founded as the Sarasota Art Association in 1926. It broke ground on its present location in 1948.
“We also have had a ton of archival information about the early days of Sarasota Art Association,” Caeser added. “What we’ve discovered is that the artists who made their home in Sarasota then were interested in really modern, interesting architecture in homes, That developed the Sarasota School of Architecture. They were interested in the performing arts, and entertaining their friends at these amazing gatherings, so we saw the rise of the performing arts in Sarasota. So as the first arts organization, we really are kind of reflecting on the trends and the movements that came as a result of the Sarasota Art Association years ago.”
Ceaser is proud of the center’s role in advancing the arts in Sarasota.
“We say we’re kind of ground zero for that Cultural Coast designation, and a big part of the work we’re doing for our centennial is creating that robust timeline, amplifying the work of our community partners. Our mission is to connect creatives in the larger community for an understanding of the human condition and wellbeing. We take that seriously."
All of the events planned for the centennial highlight the community aspect of the work Art Center Sarasota does.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.