ONE PLACE MANY VOICES Beth Gelman with Robert Lynn Whitelaw

(Airs 7/9) In this episode of ONE PLACE, MANY VOICES, Beth Gelman chats with Robert Lynn Whitelaw. Tarpon Springs is known around the world for its sponge docks and Greek heritage, but it also has a remarkable artistic legacy. In this conversation with Beth Gelman, Robert Lynn Whitelaw, the Founding Director of the Leepa-Rattner Museum, explores the artists, institutions, and cultural forces that have shaped the area's visual arts history for more than a century and explains why preserving that story matters today. Whitelaw is on the far right in this photo.
BIO  R. Lynn Whitelaw, who retired in 2015 after 40+-years working in the visual arts, is a graduate of Florida State University with bachelor and master's degrees in the History and Criticism of Art. During his career, he was employed at Hillsborough Community College for 15 years in arts management and teaching, was Curator of Education at the Tampа Museum of Art for 8 years, where he was honored by the Florida Association of Museums with an Innovator Award for a nationally recognized partnership program with Hillsborough County Public Schools, and in 1998, became founding director of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, located on the Tarpon Springs Campus of St. Petersburg College. During his 17-year tenure at the Leepa-Rattner Museum, he also served as chief curator and dramatically expanded the museum's art collection, including acquisition of the art holdings of the former Gulf Coast Museum of Art. In September 2015, Mr. Whitelaw was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Association of Museums. In his curatorial efforts, Mr. Whitelaw has organized over 140 exhibitions, many with published catalogues and gallery guides. He also served on state and local arts boards, including Arts for a Complete Education (ACE), the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts,and Palm Harbor Art Fest, as well as serving on Hillsborough and Pinellas County art-in-public places and grant review committees. Mr. Whitelaw has been a judge for over 18 Florida art shows, including the Naples Art Fair, Halifax Arts Festival (Daytona Beach), Art Harvest Art Show (Dunedin, FL), Ocala Arts Festival, Lake Wales Art Show, Mount Dora Art Festival, and Tarpon Springs Art Festival. Since retirement, Mr. Whitelaw has lectured and published articles on the history of the arts in Tarpon Springs and specifically on artist George Inness, Jr. (1854-1926), who was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2019. He has taught art history courses for Eckerd College's OLLI program, organized exhibitions for Gallery 221 at Hillsborough Community College and Brooker Creek Preserve's Gallery, and has continued to jury shows, including the 2017 Florida's Finest exhibition at the Art Center Sarasota, the 2019 All Florida exhibition at the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers, and most recently the 16th Explore This! On-Line Exhibition for theColor Pencil Society Sod of America. Mr. Whitelaw is a contributing writer for BayArtFiles, Arts Coast Journal, and his 40 Years of the Visual Arts in the Tampa Bay Area: A Personal Reflection (1975-2015), appeared in the March/April 2016 issue of Tampa Bay Magazine and is available in Podcast on the Creative Pinellas web site. 

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