When the Museum of Art – DeLand celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it will do so from a new home base. After more than a decade of operating out of multiple locations, the museum is consolidating operations into its new campus in historic downtown DeLand.
The move marks both a practical step forward and a symbolic fresh start, according to Martha Underriner, previously the museum’s education curator and now its executive director. Prior to joining the museum, she was an art teacher in public schools.
As she begins her tenure, Underriner’s early priorities include strengthening financial stability, deepening community engagement and growing the museum’s artistic reach.
“Like most arts organizations, we’re navigating financial pressure,” she says. “But our move also offers an incredible opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to DeLand and West Volusia County.”
That outreach extends far beyond the museum’s walls. Through partnerships with such programs as Head Start—which now reaches more than 700 students annually—the museum impacts more than 70,000 people each year. Notes Underriner: “Our footprint is much larger than our building.”
Looking forward, Underriner envisions the museum strengthening its ties not only within the region’s arts community but also with local businesses and nonprofits. “We’re building partnerships that benefit the broader community,” she adds.
And there’s plenty to look forward to on the exhibition front. From January 25 to March 29 the museum will host Selections from the Walker Collection, which will showcase one of the most comprehensive private assemblages in the world of paintings by the Highwaymen—the legendary cadre of self-taught Black artists who traversed the state selling vivid landscapes in the 1950s and 1960s.
Then, in April (the exact dates had not been set at press time), the museum will present Taylor Robenalt: Mid-Career Retrospective, a captivating survey of the ceramic sculptor’s intricate, anthropomorphic porcelain works. Blending animals, figures and flora, Robenalt’s sculptures explore storytelling, symbolism, and the shared human impulse to narrate and connect through art.
The Museum of Art – DeLand is located at 100 North Woodland Boulevard, DeLand. For more information, visit moartdeland.org or call 386.734.4371.
