The Arts Season Near Forté Peaks on Three Dates This Fall

Season on South Flagler Drive starts on Friday, October 30. That evening the Norton Museum of Art holds its member preview for two new exhibitions, an artist talk and a Halloween edition of Art After Dark, all at 1401 S. Dixie Highway. From then until mid-December, the Norton, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens on Barcelona Road and the Armory Art Center on Park Place open their programs one after another. Their schedules overlap most on Halloween weekend, the second weekend of November and the first Saturday of December.

For anyone living at Forté, 1309 S. Flagler Drive, those overlaps are the days to plan around. On two of them, the activity also spills onto Flagler Drive itself.

Halloween weekend opens the Norton's two big shows

On October 31 the Norton opens two exhibitions, and both run through March 14, 2027. Blazing Light: Photographs by Mimi Plumb brings together three bodies of her work. The photographs of altered landscapes and urban life deal with worries about climate change, capitalism and military conflict. Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery is a retrospective of the painter's autobiographical, symbolic and fantastical work and of her place in American modernism.

Members see both shows first. The preview is Friday, October 30, with a Member Happy Hour from 5 to 7 p.m. From 6 to 7 p.m. the same night, the museum hosts A Conversation with Mimi Plumb and Gregory J. Harris. All of this falls inside Art After Dark, which runs from 5 to 10 p.m. every Friday and is themed for Halloween that week.

Pricing makes Friday night the cheaper way in. Daytime general admission is $20 for adults and $17 for seniors 60 and over. Students with a valid school ID pay $5, and children 12 and under and members get in free. Art After Dark costs $10 for adults and seniors, which is half the daytime adult price, and stays free for members. Parking is across the street at 1501 South Dixie Highway. It costs $3 an hour with a three-hour limit, and members park free. The Restaurant at the Norton overlooks the Sculpture Garden and takes reservations through Tock.

Downtown starts its own Halloween weekend a night earlier. The city's Clematis by Night series runs Thursdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at Centennial Square and the Great Lawn. On Thursday, October 29, it becomes Clematis by FRIGHT, with Uncle Morty's Rhythm Cream.

One artist links both Nortons this season

Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, at 253 Barcelona Road, has already opened its season. In Full Bloom: Flowers in the Garden opened October 21 and runs through January 10, 2027. It shows pressed-flower collage portraits by Bruce Helander, the gardens' seventh Artist in Residence. His subjects include Palm Beach personalities as well as historical and cultural figures. Marjorie Merriweather Post and Jacqueline Kennedy appear alongside flower-covered versions of the Mona Lisa and Warhol's Marilyn Monroe.

The Norton Museum of Art holds 27 of Helander's collages in its permanent collection. He is also one of four lifetime Florida Artists Hall of Fame inductees from Palm Beach, a group that includes Ralph Hubbard Norton. Once the Norton's new shows open on Halloween weekend, you can see his work at both institutions.

The gardens are open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and closed Monday and Tuesday. Two days in the Norton's lineup won't work for a combined visit: on Tuesdays the Norton is closed, and on Mondays the gardens are.

November 13 and 14: Barcelona Road takes over Flagler Drive

The second busy stretch starts on a Friday and finishes with a parade.

Friday, November 13 starts at 11 a.m. at Ann Norton with the monthly Master Gardener in Residence Tour led by CJ McCartney. Reservations are by phone at 832-5328. The same day, the gardens open Parked for the Season, Nick Mele's photographs of classic cars staged in cinematic scenes at historic Palm Beach properties. The series runs through January 10, 2027, and marks the 10th annual Sculpture in Motion. That evening, the Norton's Art After Dark is Wellness Night.

Saturday, November 14 is the 10th Anniversary Sculpture in Motion, and it runs on a schedule:

1. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The community exhibition shows rare pre- and post-war classic cars. Automotive historians lead group tours throughout the day. Visitors vote in five categories: Most Artistic, Most Elegant, People's Choice, Sculptural Speed and the Young Connoisseurs' Award.
2. 3 p.m. America's 250 Tribute: A Nation Remembers, honoring Gold Star Families, veterans and Friends of Fisher House. The program includes the Palm Beach Atlantic University Choir and a Color Guard presentation of colors.
3. 4:15 p.m. The Grand Tour Parade of Cars leaves the main lawn, crosses the bridge, tours the island of Palm Beach and finishes at the Flagler Museum.

Kathleen and Lew Crampton are Grand Marshals. Lew Crampton co-founded the parade and serves on the Palm Beach Town Council. Chuck Mitchell, a collector whose restored Packards have won at Pebble Beach and Amelia Island, is the featured curator.

Parking is the part that affects Forté directly. Event parking is at two South Flagler addresses that sit on either side of the building's 1300 block: Palm Beach Day Academy at 1901 S. Flagler Drive, and Family Church at 1101 S. Flagler Drive from noon to 4 p.m. Shuttles run from both to the gardens. If you're getting in or out of the building that afternoon, expect shuttles on Flagler and a late-afternoon parade heading for the bridge. The gardens also post a parade route map.

December 5: two openings in one day

The third busy date falls on the first Saturday of December. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day and the next, the Armory Art Center at 811 Park Place holds its 10th Annual Creative Market. Admission and street parking are free. The market advertises up to 150 artists, along with gallery visits, live demonstrations and performances. That evening, from 7 to 10 p.m., the Norton holds ArtBeat: A Celebration of Art. The market closes two hours before ArtBeat starts.

The market also falls near the end of a term. The Armory's Fall 2 classes run six weeks, from November 2 to December 12, 2026, and registration is through the Armory class catalog.

The week around it is busy too. Clematis by Night's Holiday Tree Lighting is Thursday, December 3, from 6 to 10 p.m. Ann Norton follows with another Master Gardener tour on December 11 and an afternoon with the Allyson Briggs quartet on Sunday, December 13, from 1 to 3 p.m.

The calendar, Halloween through mid-December

On South Dixie, the cafés are still opening

Two restaurants are set to open further south on the South Dixie corridor but haven't given dates yet. Parma Palm Beach at 7170 South Dixie Highway says "Opening Fall 2026" on its site. In July, a Palm Beach Post item reported that it was expected in September. Drift Palm Beach has announced a second café at 4919 South Dixie Highway, and What Now Miami reported no opening date.

One new bakery is already open. The Palm Beach Post reported that The Daily Focaccia opened October 5 at 410 Evernia Street, facing South Dixie Highway. On Saturday mornings, the West Palm Beach GreenMarket is back on the Great Lawn at 100 N. Clematis Street for its 32nd season. According to WFLX, it runs every Saturday through May 22, 2027, except February 6 and March 20.

The two Ann Norton exhibitions close January 10. Five days later, on January 15, the gardens open Alexander Calder: Horizons, which runs through March 15, 2027.

These cultural institutions are part of what keeps South Flagler busy through the winter, and that affects how a residence there should be priced and shown during season. To talk about timing a sale or purchase on the corridor this winter, contact Samantha Sells Palm Beach and Request a Confidential Market Consultation.