Norton Museum of Art

The Norton Museum of Art is an art museum in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Its collection includes over 8,200 works, with a concentration in European, American, and Chinese art as well as in contemporary art and photography. In 2003, it overtook the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in Sarasota, to become the largest museum in Florida. History The Norton Museum of Art was founded in 1941 by Ralph Hubbard Norton (1875–1953) and his first wife, Elizabeth Calhoun Norton (1881–1947). Norton, the former head of the Chicago -based Acme Steel Co., moved to West Palm Beach upon retirement and decided to share his collection of paintings and sculptures. The late Art Deco / Neoclassical building designed by Marion Sims Wyeth opened its doors to the public on February 8, 1941. Its mission statement is "to preserve for the future the beautiful things of the past." Collection The ground-level galleries showcase contemporary and 20th-century American and European art and a comprehensive collection of Chinese works. On the top floor of the museum are noteworthy paintings by late Medieval Italian painter Jacopo Da Firenze, Lucas Cranach the Elder , Joos van Cleve and Studio, Marcantonio Franceschini , Nicolas de Largillière , Peter Paul Rubens , Anthony van Dyck , David Teniers and Studio, Jan Thomas Yperen, Joshua Reynolds , Thomas Gainsborough , and Giovanni Panini. There also are examples of Chinese export porcelain. In 2018, the Norton Museum of Art received a.