John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

About us

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art was created in 1927 by John and Mable Ringling for the people of Florida. Having made a fortune through the family-owned circus and, later through real estate and railroads ventures, John Ringling amassed an art collection of over 600 paintings, sculptures, and various decorative arts including more than 25 tapestries. Actively collecting for the Museum over the period from 1924 to 1931, Ringling and his wife, Mable, gathered important works by Cranach, Rubens, Poussin, Hals, Van Dyck, Guercino and other major artists who worked primarily from 1500 to about 1750. The Old Master collection, now including approximately 750 paintings, is the most important area of the Museum's holdings. Within it are Italian paintings that are among the rarest and most celebrated in the United States.

The Museum's art collection now consists of over 10,000 objects that include a wide variety of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs and decorative arts from ancient through contemporary periods and from throughout the world. The bayfront estate is located on the West Coast of Florida in the city of Sarasota (Sarasota County), just south of the city of Bradenton and the Manatee County lines. Ringling purchased the then-31-acre property, with an existing frame house, for a winter-vacation residence in 1911. In the early 1920s, he began to engage in extensive real estate development in the area and in 1924, began construction of his mansion, Cà d'Zan, and, in 1927, the Art Museum. He established the circus winter quarters in Sarasota also in 1927.

Ringling's real estate development was noteworthy for the role he assigned to art, shown even today in the statuary still decorating and enhancing his road network. Most importantly, however, he understood the role an art museum could play in enriching people's lives. Ten years after John's death, the State of Florida agreed to accept the estate and provide funds toward the continued operation of the Museum as a public institution.

The Museum of Art was designed by John H. Phillips and incorporates many architectural elements, dominantly Italianate, that the Ringlings brought back from Europe.

The Museum's Courtyard is arcaded on three sides by Loggias. It is inhabited by statues of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, copies of predominately ancient and Mannerist sculpture which enhance the architecture and form a charming twentieth-century American version of a European formal garden.

The Art Galleries reside within the building around this Courtyard. Over 400 objects from the Museum's permanent collection, including paintings, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and photography are on view for the public in these galleries. In 1998-99, the Art Galleries were completely reinstalled.