Naples Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Naples Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Naples Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

For a town of beaches and sunsets, Naples has an unusually rich cultural life. In a little over three decades it has built a concert hall and art museum campus, a professional theatre with its own new home, an opera company and dozens of galleries, and each winter its art fairs fill Cambier Park. Here is how it came about, and how to make the most of a season in Naples.

Artis—Naples

The story begins in 1989, when the Philharmonic Center for the Arts announced its first season in Pelican Bay and sold more than 6,000 tickets in three days; the grand opening followed that November. The main hall is named for Frances Pew Hayes, one of the founding donors, and after a 2003 renovation Hayes Hall seats 1,477, with the 283-seat Daniels Pavilion beside it, named for Myra Janco Daniels, who led the centre until she retired in 2011.

In 2013 the campus took the name Artis—Naples. Today it is home to the Naples Philharmonic and The Baker Museum, and it brings orchestral and chamber concerts, visiting soloists and touring Broadway to Southwest Florida each season. Alexander Shelley is the orchestra’s artistic and music director.

Naples keeps its concerts, plays and art fairs for the winter season, and the Gulf sunset for the walk home.

The Baker Museum

The art museum on the campus opened in 2000 as the Naples Museum of Art, became the Patty & Jay Baker Museum of Art in 2007 and The Baker Museum in 2013. An 18,000-square-foot expansion was completed in 2020, and in 2025 the museum was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Its galleries hold modern and contemporary art and glass, alongside changing exhibitions through the year. Pair a morning in the museum with a matinee or an evening concert next door: the Music and Museum subscriptions bundle the two.

Theatre and opera

Gulfshore Playhouse, Southwest Florida’s professional theatre company, opened its own home in October 2024: the 45,000-square-foot Baker Theatre and Education Center at First Avenue South and Goodlette-Frank Road, a short walk from Fifth Avenue South. Inside are the 368-seat Moran Mainstage and the 125-seat Struthers Studio. The opening was delayed after Hurricane Ian brought floodwater onto the site in 2022; the first production in the new building was Anything Goes.

Opera Naples presents a full season each winter, mixing staged operas with galas, concerts and outdoor events, and down the coast the Marco Island Center for the Arts keeps a busy calendar of exhibitions, classes and performances.

Galleries of Old Naples

The Naples Art Institute sits on Park Street beside Cambier Park, in the heart of Old Naples, with changing exhibitions in its galleries, classes and the town’s outdoor art fairs. From there, Third Street South and Fifth Avenue South hold a dense run of galleries: Gardner Colby Gallery has been part of the Third Street district since 1994, Quidley & Company is on Broad Avenue South, and Native Visions shows wildlife and nature art on Fifth Avenue South.

Some of the most personal work is in artists’ own galleries. Paul Arsenault paints Naples, the Everglades and the Keys from his studio on Gordon Drive; Emily James shows Gulf sunsets and beach scenes on Fifth Avenue South; and in the Naples Design District, Dennis Goodman photographs Florida’s birds and wildlife.

The Naples Art District

For working studios, head north. The Naples Art District, in an industrial park east of the Tamiami Trail, brings together more than 75 artists and galleries: painters, sculptors, potters, photographers and jewellers. It holds weekly open studios and signature evening events, and runs dozens of classes if you would like to make something yourself.

Town history

To understand the town the artists paint, visit Palm Cottage, built of shell-and-lime tabby in 1895 and the oldest house in Naples, and the Naples Depot Museum in the restored railway depot on Fifth Avenue South, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For the longer story, the Collier Museum at Government Center has more than 10,000 square feet of galleries running from prehistoric mastodons and the Calusa civilisation to the settlers and the Collier era, with restored Naples cottages and native gardens outside. In North Naples, the Holocaust Museum & Education Center of Southwest Florida teaches the history and lessons of the Holocaust through survivor and liberator testimonies and a historic boxcar exhibit; book ahead for its docent tours.

What’s new (checked October 2026)

The Naples Depot Museum reopened on 14 January 2026 after repairs following Hurricane Ian, with Seminole dugout canoes, the swamp buggy “Tumble Bug” and a 1947 Budd observation car built for the Seaboard Air Line. In January 2026 Artis—Naples extended Alexander Shelley’s tenure, and he will continue as artistic and music director through the end of the decade.

Cultural calendar

The Naples Art Institute’s season fills Cambier Park: the New Year’s Art Fair on 2 and 3 January 2027, and the juried Naples National Art Fair, now in its 48th year, from 19 to 21 February 2027. Indoors, the Institute shows Picasso: Back to the Origins from 6 February to 2 May 2027. At Artis—Naples, the 2026–27 season includes Hamilton from 24 to 29 November 2026 and closes with Alexander Shelley conducting The Planets on 29 April and 1 May 2027.

How to see it

Our advice: come between November and April, when the concert, theatre and opera seasons overlap with the art fairs. Spend a morning at The Baker Museum, an afternoon among the galleries of Third Street and Fifth Avenue South, and an evening at Artis—Naples or Gulfshore Playhouse. Book tickets direct with each venue, and see our Arts & Culture page for every gallery, stage and museum we recommend.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Naples Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.