By Hannah Spence
Palm Seashore has lengthy been a playground for the highly effective, however artist Serge Strosberg, a Belgian-born painter who now calls South Florida house, is giving its icons a mischievous new twist. His newest sequence, Monkeying Round Palm Seashore, transforms the island’s legendary figures not as moguls and magnates, however as monkeys.
On the coronary heart of the sequence is Johnnie Brown, the beloved pet spider monkey of architect Addison Mizner, who helped outline Palm Seashore’s Mediterranean Revival fashion within the early 1900s. Johnnie was usually perched on Mizner’s shoulder as he mingled with excessive society, changing into practically as recognizable as his eccentric proprietor. When Johnnie died in 1927, Mizner buried him within the courtyard of what’s now the Al Fresco restaurant on the Palm Seashore Par 3 Golf Course, the place a small gravestone nonetheless marks his resting place.
Almost a century later, Strosberg discovered himself eating at that very restaurant together with his gallerist when inspiration struck. “I seen Johnnie Brown’s grave within the courtyard,” he recollects. “I made a decision this poor little monkey ought to have an oil portrait.”
The primary portray within the sequence, Monkey Enterprise on the Colony, imagines Johnnie Brown as a dapper bon vivant lounging outdoors the Colony Lodge, martini in hand, wearing a pointy swimsuit and sun shades. From there, the concept advanced right into a full forged of characters: Henry Flagler, the railroad baron who constructed The Breakers and opened Florida’s east coast to prosperity; Marjorie Merriweather Publish, the cereal heiress and creator of Mar-a-Lago; and Mizner himself, all portrayed as charismatic, anthropomorphic monkeys.
“I wished to reinterpret Palm Seashore’s historical past—The Breakers, The Colony, the flag—and make it extra accessible by visually putting portraits,” Strosberg says.
Born in Belgium and skilled at Paris’s prestigious Académie Julian, Strosberg moved to Palm Seashore full-time in 2018 together with his spouse and twin sons. His artwork, identified for its lush coloration, layered storytelling, and sly humor, has been exhibited on the Lighthouse ArtCenter, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, and the Historic Society of Palm Seashore County. His previous topics embrace civil rights chief Solomon Spady, pioneering businessman J. Turner Moore, and federal choose Daniel Hurley.
The Monkeying Round Palm Seashore assortment has rapidly grow to be one of the profitable domestically produced artwork sequence in recent times, with unique oils promoting for greater than $15,000 and collectors from Miami to Atlanta buying restricted editions. Inside designers have embraced the work for its playful sophistication—items that add a way of wit and whimsy to even essentially the most conventional Palm Seashore interiors.
And whereas his topics could also be simian, no monkeys had been harmed within the making of the artwork. Strosberg’s course of depends on expertise, not taxidermy, to convey them to life. He begins by producing AI-based sketches, refining them digitally earlier than translating them to canvas. “It took a whole bunch of trials,” he says. “The primary monkeys appeared scary. Finally, I acquired one thing I appreciated, but it surely was chilly and flat. So I used it as a place to begin, then painted it historically with oils.”
His technique blends the precision of a recent eye with the self-discipline of historic approach. Strosberg paints in oil and egg tempera on canvas, a demanding course of that traces again to the German Expressionists of the Thirties, together with Otto Dix. “Only a few modern artists use it,” he says. “It takes years to grasp.” He realized the method in Paris from German painter Jörg Hermle, born in Berlin in 1933. The approach depends on an emulsion made with actual eggs to create luminous highlights and an oil-based medium for deep shadows, leading to vivid coloration and dramatic distinction. Strosberg nonetheless works with pigments he bought twenty years in the past in Rome, attaining the layered richness and light-weight which have grow to be his signature.
When requested why Palm Seashore evokes him so deeply, Strosberg factors to each its environment and structure. “The sunshine is gorgeous right here—in all of Florida, actually—however particularly Palm Seashore,” he says. “For a figurative or portrait artist, it’s particular. The tropical setting, the European-influenced structure, the historical past—it’s inspiring.”
That steadiness between nostalgia and modernity defines Monkeying Round Palm Seashore. Whereas the sequence started with Mizner and Johnnie Brown, it additionally nods to an extended, whimsical custom. “There have been many societies, not simply Mizner, who owned pet monkeys within the Nineteen Twenties,” Strosberg explains. “You see monkeys in sculptures, murals, even architectural motifs. They’ve all the time been a part of Palm Seashore. However I made it modern—one thing that hadn’t been accomplished earlier than.”
Unique works can be found at Surovek Gallery, and this month Jennifer Balcos Gallery will host a solo exhibition that includes restricted editions on paper and canvas. In January 2026, the Monkeying Round Palm Seashore assortment might be showcased at South Palm Seashore City Corridor, the Mandel JCC in Palm Seashore Gardens, and Monkey Bar at The Boca Raton—a becoming tribute inside one among Mizner’s personal architectural masterpieces.
As for the historic figures he’s “monkeying round” with, Strosberg says he selected those that embodied boldness and reinvention. “They had been visionaries,” he says. “They weren’t afraid to alter issues, even in controversial methods.” He pauses, then smiles. “I feel they’d respect what I’m doing.”
