St. Petersburg, FL – also known as St. Pete or the Sunshine City – is home to around 250,000 people. The small city is located on the west side of Tampa Bay. Amazingly, it has not one but SEVEN arts districts.

As you may recall, Hurricane Milton passed through southern Florida in early October 2024. St. Petersburg was not spared, but the residents are rebuilding. A rich legacy of creativity endures, despite last year’s devastating hurricane.

In honor of another special – and resilient – community, we’ve rounded up some local artists and cultural destinations. By the time you have read our roundup, you will be more than ready to visit St. Pete!

Morean Arts Center (est. 1917)

A great deal of credit for establishing St. Petersburg as an artistic hub belongs to the Tadd family, who founded organizations that grew into the Morean Arts Center. Shortly before passing away, J. Liberty Tadd, a specialist in children’s education, created the Florida Winter Art School. His wife, Margaret Tadd, and their daughter, Edith Tadd Little, kept the school running after his death, expanded its operations, and founded the Art Club of St. Petersburg in 1917. By the 1920s, St. Petersburg had become known for the arts. Over the next century of a very interesting history, local artists and philanthropists, most notably Beth Morean, made the Arts Center what it is today.

In addition to displaying exhibits, the Morean Arts Center offers classes, does outreach for veterans, hosts artists in residence, and runs art camps for first through tenth graders, preserving the legacy of the Florida Winter Art School. The museum has a truly remarkable permanent collection of works by Dale Chihuly (b. 1941) – 18 luminous installations, like sunbeams frozen in time. If you can visit between April 12 and June 26, you will be treated to the ninth annual Fresh Squeezed exhibit, which will showcase work by six new Florida artists.

St. Petersburg City Theatre (est. 1925)

St. Petersburg has many excellent theatre troupes, but the St. Petersburg City Theatre is famous as “the longest continuously running community theatre on Florida’s west coast.” It originated when a group called the Sunshine Players performed J.C. Nugent and Elliott Nugent’s comedy The Poor Nut (adapted for film in 1927), in which a botany nerd fails to impress his college crush. St. Petersburg City Theatre lost its roof to Hurricane Milton in 2024, but it has continued the 2024-2025 season. As leaders declared, “… this one-hundred-year storm is no match for our one-hundred-year organization.”

The 100th season began with Rick Abbot’s comedy Play On! (September 20-29, 2024) and Irving Berlin’s musical White Christmas (December 13-22, 2024). It will continue with a stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Pride & Prejudice (February 7-16, 2025), scheduled to coincide with both Austen’s 250th birthday and Valentine’s Day. (We heartily agree “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” But a REAL gentleman signs a generous prenup.) The 2024-2025 season will conclude with the stage adaptation of Sister Act (March 28-April 6, 2025). Why not support the Theatre’s rebuilding efforts by attending one of these terrifically fun plays?

Sunken Gardens (est. 1940)

As the official history page colorfully explains, these lush gardens were once “a sinkhole where wild hogs roamed.” An enterprising plumber named George Turner, Sr., bought the 4.1 acres containing that sinkhole, Curlew Pond, in 1911 for $600. He believed Curlew Pond would become fertile ground once it was drained, and he was right! Turner and his wife, Eula, welcomed their garden’s first paying guests in the 1930s, but they did not create the original main entrance building, which still stands, until 1940. Voters authorized the City of St. Petersburg to purchase the grounds with tax dollars in 1999.

“Florida” means “covered in flowers,” and the Sunken Gardens have amazing specimens not only from the region but also from around the world. Examples include milkweed, passion vines, wildflowers, orchids, and bougainvillea. Visitors can also admire animals including flamingos, parrots, turtles, and koi. What a wonderful place to relax – and to feel inspired by the beauty of the natural world!

The Dalí Museum (est. 1982)

The story of the Dalí Museum begins, improbably, in Cleveland, where a wealthy couple named Albert Reynolds Morse (1914-2000) and Eleanor Reese Morse (1912-2010) encountered a traveling exhibit about the Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) in 1942. Over subsequent years, the Morses purchased more and more Dalís to display in their home, beginning with one you may recognize, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening, Hope! (1940), acquired in 1943. Art lovers from St. Petersburg arranged to buy the Morses’ extensive collection in the 1970s, and that is how the world-class Dalí Museum came to be.

Today, the Dalí Museum has 2,400 works. Besides the Morses’ first acquisition, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening, Hope! (1940), the collection includes such notable oil paintings as Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943) and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952-1954). If you pay just $15 extra to enter the new Dalí Dome, then you can also have an immersive and educational experience watching Dalí Alive 360°.

Sunscreen Film Festival (est. 2005)

The Sunscreen Film Festival was founded in 2005 by Tony Armer. (The first festival took place in 2006.) Armer served on the St. Petersburg Clearwater Film Commission from 2014-2023, became Dallas Film Commissioner from 2023-2024, and currently works as Head of Physical Production at Talon Entertainment Finance. The festival Armer founded has earned accolades from Tampa Bay Magazine and a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sunscreen now welcomes 7,000 guests per year.

At the most recent festival, awards for Best Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography went to Sean McNamara’s Bau: Artist at War, a film about a Holocaust survivor who uses art to maintain his humanity while being held captive. You can learn about the other winners here. The next festival will take place from April 24-27, 2025. It’s going to be a special one, because Sunscreen is celebrating its 20th anniversary!

The Woodson African American Museum of Florida (est. 2006)

The Woodson Museum was founded to preserve, present, and interpret – keywords come from the mission statement – contributions of St. Petersburg’s Black community. Its first members were John Donaldson and Anna Germain, who moved to Tampa Bay in 1868. Despite racism and adversity, the community flourished thanks especially to Elder Jordan (1848-1936), arguably the most celebrated figure in St. Petersburg’s history. After buying his freedom in the early 1860s, Jordan moved to Tampa Bay, made his fortune as a fruit vendor, and then donated 26 acres of land to create the Jordan Park federal housing project. The project’s former community center now houses the Woodson Museum.

The Woodson hosts rotating art exhibits and regular events including Jazz in the Garden. In early January, local novelist Sheree L. Greer and Florida-based literature scholar Deborah G. Plant gave talks on The Life of Herod the Great, a newly (and posthumously) published novel by Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). From January 7-March 29, the Woodson will display an exhibit called Invisible Labor: Krystle Lemonias and Sharon Norwood. Since the Woodson is the starting point for the African American Heritage Trail, you should be sure to visit its 19 historical markers while you’re in the Deuces Live District.

SHINE® Mural Festival (est. 2015)

Every October, the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance (SPAA) sponsors the weeklong SHINE® Mural Festival. As the organizers explain, the event “illuminates the power of art in public spaces by revitalizing areas, inspiring dialogue, and uniting our community.” A committee invites muralists to create around 20 new works for the city, and there is also a competition specifically for local artists. Thanks to SHINE®, St. Petersburg is adorned with over 150 murals, concentrated mostly downtown.

Several murals have been created by the Vitale Bros., a local business specializing in large-scale art. It was founded by Johnny and Paul Vitale (no relation to our CEO, Ruth) in 1992, and the brothers now employ four other artists. Their SHINE® murals are The Cool Kids (2015), Bait & Switch (2019), and Rise & Shine (2022). In 2023, they and 19 other artists helped redesign the Woodson Museum’s Black Lives Matter mural. More recently, the Vitale Bros. completed a gorgeous mural depicting the Virgin Mary for St. Petersburg Catholic High School.

City of Writers Poetry Festival (est. 2024)

In 2024, St. Petersburg held its first City of Writers Poetry Festival. The event was sponsored by the nonprofit organization Keep St. Pete Lit and planned by the city’s Poet Laureate, Gloria Muñoz, who is the first Latina to hold the title. The festival was such a success that it will return in April, which is National Poetry Month. Scheduled events include a poetry reading by Adam Day, an alumnus of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. The culminating event, Poetry at the Dalí Present, features Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown and will indeed take place at St. Petersburg’s Dalí Museum.

A Colombian American poet and translator, Muñoz won the Ambroggio Prize from the American Academy of Poets and the Gold Medal Florida Book Award for Danzirly (2021). The 160-page book of bilingual Spanish-English poetry depicts the complex experiences of Latinx immigrants in the United States. Cinema fans should keep an eye out for work from Pitch Her Productions, a nonprofit organization that Muñoz co-founded to support female filmmakers.

That’s our roundup! We hope we gave you a new city for your vacation list.

We’ll be back soon with another – if we’re not frolicking with the flamingos of the Sunken Gardens (we would never!), dreaming we can’t find the exit to the Dalí Dome (what would that mean?), or wandering among St. Petersburg’s murals with jaw agape (manners be damned!)

Until next time, find some creativity wherever you can. Stay safe, and be well. #StandCreative