Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother is hanging at 1001 S. Tamiami Trail this fall. So are Gordon Parks's American Gothic, Steve Schapiro's photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, and James Karales's Selma to Montgomery March, Alabama. They are part of Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder, which opened at Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College on October 18.
The day before, The Ringling opened Acquisitions in Photography: 2020–2025 in the Museum of Art's Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Galleries. Both openings put photography at the center of the 2026–27 season. The difference is ownership. Sarasota Art Museum is hosting a famous private collection that will leave in April. The Ringling is showing photographs it has added to its own collection since 2020, most of them given by collectors and donors and some bought by the museum.
Presence Is a Visit With an End Date
Presence gathers over 100 photographs by more than 50 artists, all from the collection of photographer and humanitarian Judy Glickman Lauder. The Portland Museum of Art in Maine and the American Federation of Arts co-organized it, and Anjuli Lebowitz, the Portland museum's Judy Glickman Lauder Curator of Photography, curated it. The wall labels show where the pictures are headed. Melonie Bennett's Suzie, Bahama Beach Club, Portland, Maine, one of the show's featured images, is credited to the Portland Museum of Art as a promised gift from the Judy Glickman Lauder Collection.
The list of names reads like a 20th-century survey course. Besides Lange, Parks, Schapiro and Karales, the show includes Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Danny Lyon and James Van Der Zee. The museum's exhibition page adds Graciela Iturbide's Mujer Ángel, Sonora Desert, Norman Seeff's portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, and Todd Webb's Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets, New York. The photographs are grouped into seven themed sections that move from portraiture and land to history, labor, cities and politics.
WUSF's October 22 feature on the show starts with Migrant Mother and American Gothic, and those two pictures are the easiest place to begin in the galleries too. The show closes April 4, 2027.
The Ringling Is Showing What It Owns
The Ringling's show is quieter and says more about Sarasota's future. According to the exhibition page, the museum has acquired more than 1,200 photographic objects since 2020, and photographs are now the largest category of its recent acquisitions. The galleries show a small selection of that total, with work by over 40 artists from the 19th century to the 2020s. Most of the acquisitions came through the generosity of collectors and donors, and some were museum purchases.
The collecting started well before 2020. The Ringling credits two foundational gifts: Warren J. and Margot Coville in 2012 and Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan in 2019. The museum also has a dedicated photography post. Christopher Jones is the Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts and has been on the curatorial team since 2012. This is also the museum's second photography show of the year. In July, Your Observer covered The Evocative Lens: Pictorialism and the Rise of Fine Art Photography, a separate Ringling exhibition about photography's early claim to be fine art.
The exhibition page doesn't publish a full checklist. The one work it captions is Bea Nettles's Backyard in June, from her series Flamingo in the Dark. Most visitors won't know these photographs in advance, which sets this show apart from Presence. At Sarasota Art Museum, you walk in already knowing many of the pictures. At The Ringling, you're seeing what the museum has been collecting since 2020.
| Presence at Sarasota Art Museum | Acquisitions in Photography: 2020–2025 at The Ringling | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened | October 18, 2026 | October 17, 2026 |
| Closes | April 4, 2027 | May 9, 2027 |
| Source of the work | Judy Glickman Lauder's private collection | The Ringling's own acquisitions since 2020 |
| Scale | Over 100 photographs, 50+ artists | Selection from 1,200+ objects, 40+ artists on view |
| Organized by | Portland Museum of Art and American Federation of Arts | The Ringling |
| Regular adult admission | $20 | $30 Museum Admission |
| Free access | Free Second Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Museum of Art free on Mondays |
Seeing Both Without Paying Full Price Twice
Both shows fit into free days, but the schedules are different.
The Ringling's Museum of Art, Bayfront Gardens and Glass Pavilion are free to the public on Mondays. The Searing Galleries are inside the Museum of Art, so the photography show is included. You can't reserve free Monday entry in advance. Register at the Visitors Pavilion when you arrive. The Circus Museum and Ca' d'Zan charge regular admission even on Mondays. On other days, Museum Admission is $30 for adults, $5 for ages 6 to 17, and free for children under 6 and members. Seniors 65 and older pay $27. The show's last day, May 9, 2027, is a Sunday, so the last free Monday to see it is May 3.
Sarasota Art Museum's general admission is $20, and visitors 17 and under and museum members get in free. On Free Second Sundays, admission is free for everyone from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with family activities. On-site parking is free during normal museum hours. That puts the next free day on November 8, followed by December 13, January 10, February 14 and March 14. The second Sunday in April falls a week after Presence closes, so March 14 is the last free chance.
The Ringling has two changes this week. The Historic Circus Galleries close for maintenance November 3 through 9, while the Circus Museum's Tibbals Learning Center stays open. Museum Admission drops to $25 from November 3 through 8, and to $15 on Monday, November 9. Construction on US 41 near the museum may also change your route. The Ringling suggests reaching Bay Shore Road from the north via College Drive, or from the south via Myrtle Street, 47th Street or Mecca Drive.
The Winter Calendar Around the Photographs
Sarasota Art Museum has scheduled most of its Presence programs for after the holidays, including a talk with the collector herself.
- Saturday, November 14, 2026, 1 to 2 p.m.: Opening-day talk with glass artists Monica Guggisberg and Philip Baldwin, $10 for members and $20 for non-members, museum admission included.
- November 15, 2026 to April 17, 2027: Monica Guggisberg and Philip Baldwin: Precession Through Glass
- Tuesday, January 19, 2027, noon to 1 p.m.: Art at Noon with Judy Glickman Lauder
- Monday, February 8, 2027, 1 to 2 p.m.: Curator's tour of Presence with Lacie Barbour, SAM's Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, free for members and $20 for non-members, museum admission included
- Tuesday, February 16, 2027, noon to 1 p.m.: Art at Noon with Selina Román
Both Art at Noon sessions focus on Presence. Each is free for members and $20 for non-members, museum admission included.
Two other Sarasota Art Museum shows opened on October 18 and run through April 4: Chie Fueki's Painting the Floating World and Eszter Sziksz's Seeking, I Don't Know What I'm Looking For (And I Hope I Never Find It). A single ticket covers all three. Ringling College President Davis Schneiderman wrote about the three together in an October 24 essay for SRQ Daily.
The two museums run on different clocks, so plan the visits in order. Presence closes first, on April 4, and its last free day is March 14. Acquisitions in Photography runs until May 9, and every photograph in it is part of The Ringling's own collection.
Exhibitions like these are part of what makes a Suncoast home feel like home, and we enjoy pointing newcomers and longtime neighbors to them. If you're thinking about a home within an easy drive of Bay Shore Road or South Tamiami Trail, Carroll Couri can help you weigh the neighborhoods closest to the places you'll visit most. Book an Appointment and let's talk about where you'd like your Sunday afternoons to start.
