A stay at The Alfond Inn at Rollins, recently ranked as one of the Top Resort Hotels in Florida in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards 2021, is an immersion in both cutting-edge luxury and contemporary art. It’s the only hotel in the United States that serves as the extension of an art museum, the Rollins Museum of Art (RMA), which is part of neighboring Rollins College, which also owns The Alfond Inn at Rollins. The hotel exhibits a rotating installation of paintings, photographs, sculptures and mixed-media works of art from The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at RMA.
The new installation at The Alfond Inn at Rollins is in conjunction with the opening of the RMA exhibit, American Modernisms at the Rollins Museum of Art, on September 18, 2021. It's an exhibition that explores the multivalent meanings of the term "American modernism" in the context of the collection of the Rollins Museum of Art. From the intensely observed realism of the Ashcan School to the freewheeling exploration of the 1970s, American artists have used the tools and techniques of modernist art to inspect, reflect upon, interrogate, and change the world around them. Rather than telling one story of American modernism, the collection reveals many such narratives, many of which often overlap and even contradict one another.
The exhibition at RMA includes 32 works of art ranging from 1905 to 2013 (several of which are part of The Alfond Collection). The artworks recently installed at The Alfond Inn at Rollins that relate to the exhibition range from 2015 to 2020. The exhibition runs from September 18, 2021 to May 8, 2022.
“The Alfond Inn is an extension of the Rollins Museum of Art and a meaningful outpost for engagement of the broader Winter Park community and visitors from near and far,” said Abigail Ross Goodman, Consulting Curator, The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art. “In dialogue with Luce Fellow Grant Hamming’s exhibition at the Rollins Museum of Art, American Modernisms, the summer 2021 reinstallation of the hotel was focused on related objects that help to expand the discussion around the various ‘modernisms’ in play today. In particular, the new installation highlights artworks that demonstrate how abstraction in the present can be loaded with information and intent.”
The exhibition American Modernisms at the Rollins Museum of Art is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that includes a scholarly essay by Dr. Grant Hamming, Guest Curator of the exhibition, as well as an essay by Abigail Ross Goodman, Consulting Curator of The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art.
The customary Happy Hour Tours of the art collection will be held virtually this fall, on October 6, November 3, and December 1, 2021 at 6pm on the museum’s Facebook page. Grab a cocktail and join the guides for a “spirited” and relaxed evening virtual tour of works from The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art. Tour themes change every month and spotlight different craft cocktails from Hamilton’s Kitchen. Cocktail recipes will be shared online in advance for anyone wishing to make them at home! Happy Hour Tours are free to join. https://web.rollins.edu/rma/events/index.html
Fall rates at The Alfond Inn at Rollins start at $299.
Image: Esphyr Slobodkina (American, 1908-2002) Desert Moon, 1941 Oil on board, 18 x 22 in. The Alfond Collection of Art at Rollins College, Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2017.15.5 Image courtesy of the Slobodkina Foundation, Northport, New York
