Polk's art museum renamed for Ashley Gibson Barnett after 'transformational' donation

Just as it is undergoing a physical transformation, Polk County’s premiere art museum has received a financial injection that yields a new name.

The Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College is now The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art at Florida Southern College. Museum officials will market it as The AGB, as indicated by a sign now on display in the lobby. The name change reflects a donation from the Nicholas and Ashley Barnett Foundation at GiveWell to establish an endowment that will keep the Lakeland museum financially viable for decades, Executive Director and Chief Curator H. Alexander Rich said.

The name change took effect Saturday, when retiring Florida Southern College President Anne B. Kerr revealed the donation during a special event at the museum. Rich said he expects exterior signs and other branding changes to roll out in the next weeks or months.

Rich declined to give the size of the donation but called it “transformational.”

“The museum has long been seeking benefactors, like Ashley and Nick, to help us come to this moment where we can achieve sustainability and longevity,” Rich said Monday. “And we've been seeking a naming gift like this for a very long time. And we're so grateful that Ashley and Nick stepped up to the plate to really give back to the community and speak from their hearts in terms of their love for the arts and what the arts mean to our community and our region.”

The name change has historical resonance. Nicholas Barnett is a grandson of George W. Jenkins, the founder of Publix Super Markets. In 1966, Jenkins donated the property on Palmetto Street, the site of a former Publix store, as a new home for the museum.

Ashley Gibson Barnett earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Florida Southern College in Lakeland and a master’s degree in law and her juris doctor degree from Emory University in Atlanta. She serves on the boards of the museum and Florida Southern College, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently appointed her to the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.

The announcement marks the latest nominal evolution for a museum that derives from the Youth Museum of Imperial Polk County, founded in 1966 by the Junior Welfare League of Lakeland. The nonprofit adopted the name Polk Public Museum in 1969 and then became the Polk Museum of Art in 1983.

When the institution affiliated with Florida Southern College in 2017, the name expanded to Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College.

The museum is undergoing a dramatic expansion, its first since the current building opened in 1988. The expansion , adding a connected wing, will create another 14,000 square feet of space and six new galleries. An overview on the museum’s website described it as an $8 million project. The new wing is scheduled to open in late fall, Rich said.

The museum has long maintained an operational endowment, Rich said. The gift from the Barnetts will serve as a separate endowment, helping to fund operations and the recruitment and retention of staff, as well as educational programs and premier exhibitions, Rich said.

The museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian, has offered free admission since 2016. That is subsidized by corporate and individual sponsorships and memberships.

The museum draws about 140,000 visitors a year, Rich said, including participants in educational programs and guests at the Mayfaire-by-the-Lake festival. For three decades, the museum has collaborated with Polk County Public Schools to host field trips for fourth-grade students.

With an annual operating budget of $1.6 million, the museum has 15 full-time employees. The museum operated at a deficit of $756,000 of 2021, according its most recently available IRS nonprofit filing. The institution listed assets of $5.2 million.

Rich said that the Barnetts did not demand the name change as a condition of the donation, but he emphasized that the museum’s leaders had long sought a naming gift.

"Surprising Ashley with the naming of our community's esteemed museum was a meaningful way to recognize her dedication to the arts and their impact on our community," Nicholas Barnett said in a news release. "The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art will be a link between our treasured past and an exciting, forward-thinking future for our community, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.”

The change expands the list of local entities named for the Barnett family, such as Barnett Park and the Carol Jenkins Barnett Pavilion for Women and Children at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center. Several buildings at Florida Southern College bear the Barnett name.

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Some art museums in Florida, including those in Orlando, Tampa and St. Petersburg, bear geographic elements in their names,. But many others are named for donors or other significant figures, among them the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, the High Museum in Atlanta and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

“I think that every change is going to take everyone's adjusting to it over a matter of time,” Rich said. “And I'm sure there are many people who will, as with many arenas or stadiums or museums that change names, still refer to the museum with its old name. And that's fine.”

He added: “I do not believe that that's going to detract from the experience of the museum or from people's recognition of the museum. In fact, I am very confident that this is a really shining moment for us, as we enter this next era of the museum.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13 .

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk's art museum renamed for Ashley Gibson Barnett after 'transformational' donation