Hansen Mulford—who spent 42 years as chief curator at Orlando Museum of Art—simultaneously maintained a steady practice of landscape painting. Now his first solo exhibition, Panoramic Light: The Art of Hansen Mulford, is slated to open at Crealdé School of Art.
The collection will feature paintings and drawings from Mulford’s many decades of observing the state’s coastlines, wetlands, rivers and prairies where he found inspiration. Says Mulford: “My work reflects a deep affection for this place where I have lived for more than 60 years.”
Panoramic Light has already opened and will run through December 11 in Crealdé’s Alice and William Jenkins Gallery. Mulford will lead an artist talk and exhibition tour on Thursday, November 12, from 6 to 7 p.m.
Mulford creates sprawling canvases that may combine skyscapes and landscapes observed at different times and places. So rather than being literal depictions of a single location, his paintings evoke the emotional resonance of experiencing natural Florida.
Also informing Mulford’s work is his fascination with American landscape painting, and particularly the work of 19th-century Luminist Martin Johnson Heade—a Pennsylvanian who turned his attention to subtropical motifs after relocating to St. Augustine.
Much like Heade before him, Mulford uses strong horizontal compositions and a quiet, glowing palette to capture the unique, moisture-rich skyscapes and tranquil wetlands native to Florida.
“Hansen finds something compelling in places that are very familiar to us, whether it’s a stretch of road, a wetland, the water or one of those enormous Florida skies,” says Crealdé Executive Director and COO Emily Bourmas-Fry. “There’s a real beauty in the way he interprets this place.”
Panoramic Light is personal for Bourmas-Fry, who worked with Mulford for 14 years as OMA’s director of marketing and development before she joined Crealdé in 2024. She says she has long admired his work as an artist and notes that his experience as a curator was an asset in shaping the exhibition as a whole.
“Hansen understands how people move through a gallery and how placing one piece can influence and how you experience the next, but ultimately, the focus is on the work itself,” she says. “He has been such an important part of the arts community in Central Florida, and I love that this exhibition gives people a chance to see another side of him.”
Mulford quietly retired from OMA in 2023 in the aftermath of an imbroglio involving the museum’s display of forged paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat in an exhibition championed by the late Aaron De Groft, then director, who dismissed curatorial skepticism about the works.
But Mulford, with the closure of one career, was finally able to dedicate himself fully to his own paintings—with results that are, well, luminous. Crealdé School of Art is located at 600 St. Andrews Boulevard, Winter Park. For more information, call 407.671.1886 or visit crealde.org.
