Henry Flagler, Palm Beach Gilded Age get colorful makeover in Lake Worth Beach exhibit

A year before the pandemic, Palm Beach portrait artist Serge Strosberg was visiting the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum when he came upon an old photograph of the museum’s namesake.

The black and white image, taken around the time of the Civil War, shows a young Henry Flagler looking confident and spiffy in a fashionable top hat.

“I wondered, what would he look like today? I bet he would be a cool-looking guy,’’ Strosberg recalled asking himself as he looked at the photo.

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The Belgian-born artist went back to his studio above Antique Row in West Palm Beach and made a sketch of the young Flagler photo. But instead of replicating the black and white tones of the original, he added color to Flagler’s clothes and top hat — not just any colors, but bold, modern Lilly Pulitzer prints.

“When I saw that image, I thought, ‘This is brilliant! What a great idea!’’’ recalled Jessica Ranson, director of artists services at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, who saw the sketch on a visit to Strosberg’s studio.

Strosberg suggested to Ransom the idea of a series of paintings paying modern homage to Flagler and Gilded Age Palm Beach. Ransom got in touch with the Flagler Museum, which offered images of vintage photographs that Strosberg reinterpreted with bursts of color.

The result is "Veni, Vidi, Vici," an exhibit that opened Jan. 6 at the Cultural Council’s gallery in downtown Lake Worth Beach and ends Feb. 18.

“It’s a really fun exhibit,’’ said Ransom. Strosberg “is sort of taking all of these powerful people who came to Palm Beach and modernized it, saying. ‘Here is what would happen if Flagler was alive today. This is what he would be wearing.’’’

Flagler, the Standard Oil co-founder who built railroads that made wild 19th-century Florida accessible to millions and built his winter home in Palm Beach, isn’t the only star of the show.

The five colorful interpretations include vintage photographs of the Vanderbilts and other members of late 19th century and early 20th century Palm Beach society, as well as a Caesar Augustus bust that was part of Flagler’s collection at Whitehall, the name of his estate before it was turned into a museum.

Next to each painting is a copy of the corresponding photograph. Each painting is bordered by a custom-made frieze with train tracks, emphasizing Flagler’s monumental role in turning Old Florida into the modern destination it is today.

“The response has been very positive,’’ Ransom said. “People are enjoying the colorful clothing and have frequently noted the train tracks as a frieze on the framing.’’

One painting depicts a 19th-century locomotive steaming across Flagler’s original overseas railroad, from a photograph taken in the Florida Keys. But in Strosberg’s painting, the old train steams past Phillips Point, The Bristol and other modern-day West Palm Beach landmarks on its way to old Palm Beach.

“I tried to take it to an interesting place starting from these old black and whites,’’ Strosberg said.

While the exhibit offers a fresh look at familiar Gilded Age photographs, it also introduces Flagler to younger audiences who may not be aware that “he’s the guy who opened the entire east coast of Florida for development,’’ said Palm Beach historian Rick Rose, who wrote cutlines for the exhibit.

“The legacy of Henry Flagler is still alive and well today,’’ Rose said. “You think about Brightline alone; those are the tracks Flagler built. The water we drink comes from the reservoir and pumping system Flagler’s engineers built in West Palm Beach. I think it's fascinating to reexamine those images that we all know but to bring them to life a little bit in an historical context.’’

The title of the exhibit, Julius Caesar’s Latin expression “I came, I saw, I conquered,’’ plays off the role Flagler, the Vanderbilts and others in the Gilded Age played in modernizing Palm Beach.

“I'm paying tribute to the vision of what these guys did,’’ Strosberg said.

“Bringing a train in 1986 to the Florida swamps is the equivalent of Elon Musk sending a rocket to Mars,’’ he said. “It must have been so inhospitable, something so crazy for that time and it was really an achievement.’’

For the older Flagler most of us know, Strosberg reinterpreted a famous portrait hanging in The Breakers by adding a striped blazer. To get the detail right, he went to Maus & Hoffman on Worth Avenue and took smartphone photos of Michael Maus modeling the striped blazer that Flagler wears in the painting.

“I can just picture (Flagler) in Palm Beach in 2022. He would wear something colorful, not boring,’’ Strosberg said.

Of all the paintings, perhaps none is as fresh and bold as “Young Flagler,” the interpretation of the 20-something man in “modern attire inspired by the iconic designer Lilly Pulitzer, conveying the image of a quintessential Palm Beach dandy,’’ as Rose writes in the cutline.

“The perspective of the subject as a young man is a complete contrast to how most Floridians imagine Mr. Flagler, who was in his 60s by the time he had established himself as the important, towering figure in Florida history.’’

The Flagler Museum offered a tip of the cap to the exhibit, which can be seen for free Thursdays through Saturdays at the Cultural Council’s main office in downtown Lake Worth Beach.

“While the museum’s current administration and staff were not involved in this art project, the museum very much appreciates the attention given to Florida’s greatest benefactor,’’ Flagler Museum executive director John Blades, who retired in 2016 after 22 years but returned to the position last year, said in a statement.

Strosberg said he hopes to expand the series to include interpretations of vintage photographs of Addison Mizner, Marjorie Merriweather Post and other iconic Palm Beach figures.

The Historical Society of Palm Beach County will host an expanded exhibit of Strosberg’s Gilded Age paintings in May at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum in downtown West Palm Beach.

If you go

What: "Veni, Vidi, Vici" exhibition

Where: Donald M. Ephraim Family Gallery, 601 Lake Ave., Lake Worth Beach

When: Through Feb. 18

Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday

Info: palmbeachculture.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Free exhibit pumps vibrant color into portraits, photos of Palm Beach icons