2/3/03
Women of Our Time Debuts at Florida International Museum
Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery Features 75 Women Who Changed America
Opens March 7, 2003

St. Petersburg, Florida (February 3, 2003) Florida International Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery celebrate 75 women who have challenged and changed America. “Women of Our Time” is a stunning collection of photographic portraits of women whose brilliance, courage, style and unflagging spirit have helped shape America as we know it. “Women of Our Time” will make it national debut at the Florida International Museum on March 7, 2003.

“ Women of Our Time” includes photographs of activists and artists, designers and dancers, politicians and poets, all of them agents of change in their field or society at large. The photographs reveal their subjects at pivotal moments of their lives - Eleanor Roosevelt just after the passage of the Declaration of Human Rights; Jesse Norman the year she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera; Joan Baez at the 1963 March on Washington - lending each image the poignancy of a struggle overcome and a triumph earned.

Featuring the work of the most distinguished photographers of the 20th century - among them Edward Steichen, Lotte Jacobi, Irving Penn, Phillippe Halsman, Adoph de Meyer, Lisette Model and Arnold Newman - “Women of Our Time” is as much about the art of photographic portraiture as it is a celebration of its subjects.

“ These pictures do more than tell us how these women looked,” said Kathy Oathout, executive director of Florida International Museum. “They also capture significant moments of their careers and, at their best, add to our understanding of the nature of their achievements.”
Highlights of the exhibition include: Helen Keller, photographed by Charles Whitman in 1904; Margaret Sanger, photographed by Ira Hill in 1917; Josephine Baker, photographed by Stanislaus J. Walery in 1926; Georgia O’Keeffe, photographed by Irving Penn in 1948; and Judy Garland, photographed by Bob Willoughby in 1954.

“ Women of Our Time” will continue to travel for two years. The next venue is the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama in May.

Florida International Museum is the permanent home of the John F. Kennedy Collection and through Fall 2003, The Cuban Missile Crisis: When The Cold War Got Hot. FIM is currently hosting the North American debut of Mystique of the Motorcycle, a display of 83 rare and classic motorcycles from the world-class Trev Deeley Motorcycle collection, through April 27.

Admission is $12 for adults, $11 for college students and seniors 65+, $6 for students. Children under 6 are free. The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.. Last entry to the museum is at 4 p.m. daily.

For more information please contact the Florida International Museum at 727-822-3693 or visit www.floridamuseum.org.

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The Florida International Museum is a non-profit educational institution supported, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Florida Arts Council, State of Florida, Division of Cultural Affairs, and the City of St. Petersburg. Other major sponsors include Progress Energy, Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, and St. Petersburg Times.