Mantle to Monet: Treasures await at new Baker Museum exhibit in Naples

Common goals of ball teams, children at play, a community beach cleanup: All join the "Esprit de Corps" theme that suffuses The Baker Museum's new season.

The museum season, announced Friday, Aug. 6, has incorporated a sort of arm-linking of its own. Exhibitions that travel in different directions appear together for broad visitor appeal. Choose your interest: entertainment, romance, community. 

The most obviously entertaining one will be "Baseball Heroes," a firsthand look at the collection of Naples philanthropist Jay Baker. Baker, an avid New York Yankees devotee, owns a collection the museum calls one of the "most extraordinary outside of the National Baseball Hall of Fame." It holds, among many other pieces:

• Mickey Mantle's first signed contract
• The Yankee jersey Don Larsen wore for the perfect game he pitched in the World Series, the only one in history
• Balls signed by legends such as Babe Ruth and other equipment from legendary players

It will also have multimedia facets, including a recorded interview with Baker.

"Viewers don't have to be Yankees fans to enjoy this exhibition," emphasized Courtney McNeil, director and chief curator of the museum. "This exhibition is designed to appeal to any lover of baseball, from the super-fan to the most casual aficionado of the sport."

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The COVID-19 closure gave McNeil, who joined the museum Jan. 18, time to concentrate on the 2021-22 season with her staff. As a result, she has been able to direct two thirds of its programming, she said. 

Two more exhibitions align with "Baseball Heroes": One is another local sharing, this time by both Jay and Patty Baker, of their art, "Love in All Forms: Selections from the Art Collection of Patty and Jay Baker." It offers works from abstract Henry Moore sculpture to Impressionist Claude Monet to the polished look of a Tamara de Lempicka art deco portrait. It, too, will include a video interview, this one with both of the Bakers. 

Both are at the museum Oct. 16-May 15.

The second, geographically aligned with the first, is a look at New York City street life by photographer Helen Levitt. Levitt's right-angle viewfinder allowed her to look in one direction but snap photographs in another. Her subjects were largely unaware of her presence, and gave her fresh, unfiltered looks at people — on the subway, on their steps, on the move. Children at play were favorite subjects.

That exhibition was organized by Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia, where McNeil worked previously. It's at the museum Sept. 7-Dec. 5.

Another exhibition, one McNeil hopes will involve Naples, is "Pam Longobardi: Ocean Gleaning." It displays the artist's repurposing of ocean litter into tightly formed, stylized shapes and sculptures. Among the works will be an installation created directly from litter the Atlanta-based artist finds on Southwest Florida beaches.

"I've always been impressed, not just by the beauty of her artwork and the gallery experience of seeing it, but (that) her artistic practice supports the creation of that artwork," McNeil said. 

"She believes not just working in isolation in cleaning beaches to obtain her materials, but working with the communities to educate them on the importance of not using single-use plastics and the ramifications of not disposing plastics appropriately."

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Longobardi, regents' professor at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design at Georgia State University, has been using ocean plastics she finds as her base material for more than 10 years.

She has already made one trip to Naples to glean material for a site-specific installation on the third-floor expansion gallery at The Baker Museum. The museum is also partnering with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida for events around the exhibition. Student workshops, a community beach cleanup and more are part of that. 

"As has been core to her, and one of our shared goals, is that some of the material from this beach cleanup does produce something that ends up in the exhibition," said Kathleen van Bergen, CEO and President of Artis—Naples, which is the umbrella organization for the museum. "So people could have input into the exhibition by cleaning up the beach."

Two more exhibitions with a whiff of romance come next spring. "The Transcendental Painting Group," a look into the 1930s alternative style of painting that emphasized symbols and imagery over the physical world. It was a short-lived, but influential, school, creating a liberating model for modern artists. 

The exhibition was organized by the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California. At the same time, "Invisible Thread," a look at contemporary art with a transcendental, spiritual tone, opens. It was organized by Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, through guest curator Aaron Levi Garvey.

The two exhibitions are March 26-July 24. Several other exhibitions, including a focus on subjects from the permanent collection and the Florida Contemporary exhibition, are also in the season.

Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091

What: The Baker Museum opens with new exhibitions and lectures on them Sept. 7 Where:  5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples

When: Sept. 7, opening with "Helen Levitt: In the Street" photographs from New York City, and "Subject Matters: Selections from the Permanent Collection"

Information: 239-597-1900; artisnaples.org

Something else: Gift shop, regularly scheduled docent tours

Covid-19 protocols: These may change according to directives from the Florida Department of Health and CDC guidelines; for the full policy, click the protocols banner on the artisnaples.org home page

Security protocols: Bags may not exceed approximately 14 by 6 by 4 inches. No backpacks, suitcases or beach bags.