Artist Helander brings ‘In Full Bloom’ to Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens

Artist Bruce Helander is the seventh artist in residence at Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach. [Photo by Christopher Fay]

Bruce Helander will blend portraiture with the natural world this fall as the seventh artist in residence at Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach.

Helander’s “In Full Bloom: Flowers in the Garden” will be on view through Jan. 10 in the Norton House Gallery. The exhibition helps launch the gardens’ 50th anniversary season and features approximately two dozen portraits created with pressed flowers, photography and watercolor.

The works draw inspiration from prominent Palm Beach women, historical and cultural figures, and recognizable women from art and popular culture. Subjects include Frances Fisher, Jill Glazer, Audrey Gruss, Amanda Schumacher and Susan Wright, along with Iris Apfel, Marilyn Monroe, the Mona Lisa, Marjorie Merriweather Post and Jacqueline Kennedy.

“When I was invited to become the artist in residence at Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, I wanted to create a body of work that felt especially connected to the beauty and spirit of the gardens,” says Helander, a West Palm Beach resident whose work is in dozens of major museum collections.

The idea grew from a birthday portrait Helander created for glass artist Dale Chihuly using dried, pressed flowers. Encouraged by the response, Helander began exploring how flowers could become an integral part of portraiture.

“The result is a series of portraits of prominent Palm Beach women where photography, watercolor and flowers come together in an unexpected way,” he says. “There is something wonderfully fitting about bringing portraiture — one of the oldest forms of artistic expression — into a garden setting and allowing flowers gathered from gardens, including my own, and sourced from around the world to become part of each subject’s story.”

Both Ann Weaver Norton, the sculptor who established the nonprofit foundation in 1977, and Helander have been inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, a distinction that garden leaders say gives the residency additional significance.

Helander has built an extensive career as an artist, curator and arts writer. His work is in the permanent collections of 53 museums, including the Norton Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution and Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also is a former White House Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a limited number of collectors and patrons can commission Helander to create works incorporating photographs, memorabilia and symbolic imagery reflecting the subject’s life and legacy. Thirty percent of the proceeds from each commissioned portrait will benefit Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens.

The exhibition arrives as Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens celebrates its 50th anniversary season.

The property at 253 Barcelona Road includes the historic Norton House and Artist Studio, Art and Nature Conservatory, exhibition galleries, monumental sculptures, Pollinator Garden, and historic Orchid House Plaza. Its tropical gardens contain more than 250 species of rare palms and cycads and are recognized as an international arboretum.

The gardens are open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free for members, $15 for adults, $10 for visitors 65 and older, and $7 for students. Children younger than 5 are admitted free.