For decades, the Beaux Arts Ball was the Sarasota cultural event of the season. Art Center Sarasota is bringing it back. This year, the themed roaring 1920s costume ball will honor artistic legacy, celebrate Art Center Sarasota’s centennial anniversary and support the future of art in Southwest Florida. The evening includes music provided by a dynamic jazz trio led by former lead singer of Zappa Plays Zappa, Ben Thomas, and a live large-scale painting created in real time.
Attendees are encouraged to dress in ‘20s-inspired artful attire or festive formalwear, with special recognition awarded for standout looks.
MORE INFORMATION:
This year’s ball
The Beaux Arts Ball takes place on Saturday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium, 801 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota.
The evening will also feature dinner and a live auction alongside the jazz performance.
The celebration concludes with a high-energy finale, inviting guests onto the dance floor.
The Beaux Arts Ball is Art Center Sarasota’s most important fundraiser, generating support that keeps its galleries admission-free and its high-quality programming active six days a week. Proceeds directly fund exhibitions, scholarships, and accessible arts education for all ages. Attending is both a celebration of the arts and a meaningful investment in Sarasota’s cultural future.
“For a century, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota’s first arts organization, has played a vital role in shaping the region’s cultural identity,” said Katherine Ceaser, executive director of Art Center Sarasota. “The Beaux Arts Ball celebrates not only the arts, but the extraordinary community of members and supporters whose generosity keeps our exhibitions, education programs, and artist initiatives possible while remaining admission-free. We are truly thankful for their continued commitment.”
Tickets for the Beaux Arts Ball are now available with limited availability. They start at $300, with tables beginning at $2,400. Visit https://artsarasota.ejoinme.org/tickets for tickets or additional information.
Historical note about past balls
Art Center Sarasota has been researching the history of the ball since last summer.
According to Ceaser, researchers have found archival material not just in the Art Center’s records, but in its storage unit as well. In addition, members and other people have been dropping off newspaper clippings, magazine articles and other artifacts they’ve found in photo albums, attics and garages.
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. It 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 he moved to Sarasota, Saunders was a well-known fashion and costume designer in New York City. He 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 ohs 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, a cyclops and Judy Axe as a spectacular peacock.
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 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.
While the ball continued in earnest during the beginning of the ‘60s, it had 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 ending once more in the 1980s.
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 runway show fundraiser. In keeping with the Beaux Arts tradition, guests to that year’s runway show were encouraged to don elaborate costumes and show them off on the dance floor during the event’s afterparty.
The ball returned in 2019 as part of the 11th fashion show, held at Art Ovation Hotel in downtown Sarasota.
Regarding the Roaring ‘20s theme, Ceaser noted, “The ‘20s Art Deco vibe is more indicative of what you’d find 100 years ago when the Sarasota Art Association was first founded. 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.”
About Art Center Sarasota
Founded in 1926, Art Center Sarasota serves as the first and oldest visual arts organization in Sarasota. Art Center Sarasota is admission-free and open to the public; its mission is to bring together creatives and the broader public to increase understanding of the human condition, support wellbeing, and build community connection through the universal language of art.
“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.
Location
Art Center Sarasota is located at 707 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, telephone 941-365-2032 or visit www.artsarasota.org .
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.
