Pines & Palms: The Georgia-Florida Artists Association will present a dazzling early 19th century portrait exhibit in Thomasville at the Lapham-Patterson House during the Spring Ramble weekend, April 12-14. The 20 beautiful portraits ranging in size and mediums are from the private collection of FAMU art education professor emeritus and artist, Dr. Ron Yrabedra. This not-to-be-missed show will be located in the third-floor ballroom.

During the Ramble dates, Lapham-Patterson will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a reduced admission fee of $5, which includes a tour of the house.

The portrait show will move to a second venue, the Thomas County Library’s Flipper Room, from April 17 to May 11.

A long-time admirer of the collector and a board member of Pines & Palms, Beth Weidner, says she thinks this may be the coolest project of the many delivered by Pines & Palms in its first two years. 

“By showing 20 evocative pre-Civil War oil paintings by American and European artists we are drawing attention to how the wealthy memorialized their families before cameras and, at the same time, saluting Ron Yrabedra, a beloved face of the art scene in Tallahassee,” she said.

Sharon Maxwell Ferguson, a colleague of Dr. Yrabedra, got the show off the ground. 

“When I introduced Sandi (Shaw, founder of Pines & Palms) and Ron, I had something like this this in mind. I knew he had these portraits hanging in his house and that he had been asked many times to show the collection at premier Tallahassee venues, but Pines & Palms was the one that got it done,” she said. “I really think this is a big deal for Thomasville.”

The Ramble is a three-day event organized by the Georgia Trust that will bring in as many as 500 people to Thomasville to tour historic treasures in the town. The Ramblers will be registering at the Lapham-Patterson House. Anne McCudden, director of the Thomasville History Center, is delighted with the traffic that will come in over the weekend. 

“The Lapham-Patterson House is a true wonder to behold,” McCudden said. “Built in 1885, the third floor was a ballroom which housed a billiards table during its heyday and likely hosted may splendid events.” 

The portraits are an example of the type of paintings that may have hung in the home during the Victorian period

A soft-spoken Southern storyteller, Yrabedra retired from 41 years of teaching, the last 34 at Florida A&M University. Now he is a full-time artist at his charming studio in Tallahassee’s Railroad Square Art Park, where he has painted and entertained guests for 38 years. 

When asked why he started this collection, he said, “Years ago, I was sitting in my studio looking at my paintings and drawings when I asked myself the question: What will people be looking at in three hundred years?  I thought of this for a long time, and the answer came back as this — people will always be interested at looking at people.”

Raised in Mobile, Ala., by a cultured family, he was familiar with the interiors of Southern mansions and their arresting portraits that towered over a small boy.

“I never learned to paint portraits in the Old Master tradition, but I never tired at looking at these human faces with their clothes, jewelry, and hairstyles — all conveying the values of the times and places in which they were created.”

Dr. Yrabedra began teaching at FAMU in 1974. He served as art director for LeMoyne Art Center from 1982-86 and was a founding board member for the Brogan Museum of Art and Science. He was a faculty member for the Florida State Institute for Art Education funded by the J. Paul Getty Foundation and the Walter P. Annenberg Foundation and taught for the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University, lecturing on the history of 19th Century European art for the Osher Institute for Life Long Learning.  He has received three grants from the state of Florida for his work in painting, ceramics, and historical research on Alvan Harper’s 19th Century photographs of African-Americans.

He continues to paint and show his works of art, and continually studies art history and art education.  For more information about his own renowned paintings inspired by classical designs and images and glittering with gold, brilliant reds and deep hues, go to his website: www.yrabedra.net or follow him on Facebook. 

April and May are busy times for Pines & Palms. A week after the opening of the portrait show, on Saturday, April 27, Pines & Palms members will be saluting the shops and restaurants in the Bottoms by painting on West Jackson near the Ritz Amphitheater as part of the Rose Show and Festival; from 6 to 8 p.m. the paintings will be for sale and displayed on the street.

On Friday, May 3, the arts group will host a BackRoads/BackRooms adventure that will take the guests to a recently remodeled historic antebellum home on Dawson where a James Beard award-winning executive chef will prepare and serve a farm-to-table lunch. The group will then head off to a tour of Wild Carrots, a local hydroponic vegetable farm, and close the day with a tasting of chilled wines in the barn. For more information about these and other local art events go to www.pines&palms.org.