Guest Blog: Key West - A drinking town with an art problem

Guest Blogger Amy, an Art Lover and Collector (Yes, she has a few PIGSY art works!) and a Florida transplant living in the tropical paradise of Key West writes about culture and arts in Key West.

When most people think of Key West, they think about Sloppy Joes, Spring Breakers and partying on Duval Street. However, as someone who lives in Key West I can attest that there is way more to do beyond drinking on Duval and a lot of it is cultural and literary activities. In this blog post I’m going to tell you about some of the arty and creative characters that at one time or another have spent time in Key West.

Key West means different things to different people and not all of us like to do the same things while on vacation so along with the above I’m going to list some of the amazing art galleries and cultural centers in Key West if you want to take a break from barhopping!

Famous Authors with a Key West connection

Tennessee Williams

Pulitzer prize winning playwright Tennessee Williams is known for writing “A Streetcar named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie”. He lived in Key West for over thirty years and is thought to have written the final draft of Streetcar in the La Concha Hotel on Duval Street. His house was on Duncan Street and this was where he wrote “The Rose Tattoo” which was adapted in to a film in 1955 and starred Burt Lancaster and Anna Magnani. To find out more about Williams, you can visit the Key West Tennessee Williams Museum on Truman Avenue which contains many Tennessee Williams artifacts including his typewriter!.

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers born 1917 was an American novelist who published her first novel in 1940, titled “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” which was widely acclaimed and is still very popular and much read today. It’s an American classic to my mind. Carson McCullers was friends with Tennessee Williams and spent the Spring of 1955 with him here in Key West. McCullers died in 1967 at the very young age of 50 in Nyack, New York.

Truman Capote

Spent Winters in Key West staying and working on his writings in the very well known Pier House resort built by Key West native and developer David Wolkowsky. Capote wrote “Answered Prayers” in Key West.

Ernest Hemingway

Possibly the most famous Key West resident, Hemingway lived on the island in the 1930’s in his house on Whitehead Street which is now a museum. Initially he lived for a while, in what is now the Casa Antigua on Simonton, but, at the time Hemingway stayed there it was the Trev-Mor Hotel. He, and his then wife Pauline, were awaiting delivery of a Ford Roadster (a wedding present from Pauline’s Ungle Gus) but when delivery was delayed the car company said they would put them up in the hotel while they waited two weeks for the car to arrive. They fell in love with the island and stayed a further two years in the hotel and then went on to buy their house on Whitehead where Hemingway wrote numerous works, in the second story of the Carriage House on the property, including “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Green Hills of Africa”. Born in 1899 and married four times, Hemingway died by suicide in 1961 but his legend lives on - not only through his novels but through the stories of his legendary drinking ability, boxing bouts and fishing trips. His house on Whitehead is a must visit in Key West and the tour guides have a dearth of stories to regale visitors on tours of the property……not to mention that you can catch sight of the 6 toed cats that can be traced back to Hemingway’s own 6 toed cat which are deemed by sailors to be a good luck charm.

Shel Silverstein

Not only a children’s writer, he is known for his cartoons and songs. He penned the Key West themed song, “The Great Conch Train Robbery” which was inspired by his girlfriend who drove a Conch Train tourist attraction in Key West. The Conch Train tour is a piece of Key West history having been showing tourists the island since the 1950’s!

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer.

Judy Blume

It is a little known fact that the amazing Judy Blume lives on the island. A Key West resident for the last fifteen or twenty years or so, it's probably not a big surprize to learn that she is a massive contributor to the development of the arts, literature and culture on the island; she opened a book shop within an arts studio (where she works a couple of days a week! Well did, anyway, prior to covid). She, and her husband, George Cooper founded an arthouse cinema on the island - The Tropic Cinema.

And I've met her!!!! And she is wonderful, of course. So generous with her time and thoughts. She spoke with my sister and I for about twenty minutes - on subjects varying from why she opened a bookshop in Key West ("it was needed"), to abortion laws in Ireland, to asking us (ASKING US!!!!) what we thought of the U.S. cover of her latest book versus the European cover - and telling us how she preferred the European cover and how the process works of deciding on the covers etc etc.

Gore Vidal

Known for his writings, a commentator on culture and politics, Gore Vidal was openly bisexual and many of his books had LGBT characters.

Michael Mewshaw

Fiction and non-fiction writer Michael Meshaw (best known for his sports books, including “Short Circuit” and “Ladies of the Court” which both cover the topic of professional tennis) lives in Key West during the Winter time and spends the other time elsewhere travelling in Europe. His novel “Year of the Gun” was made into a film of the same name by John Frankenheimer in 1991.

James Leo Herlihy

Another friend of Tennessee Williams, James Leo Herlihy is the author of “Midnight Cowboy”, “All Fall down” and the “The Season of the Witch” and set many of his writings in Key West. Born in Detroit in 1927, Herlihy living on and off in Key West from the 1950’s to the early 1970’s and it was in the guest house of 709 Baker Lane that he wrote Midnight Cowboy in 1965. Herlihy died in 1993 in Los Angeles.

Wallace Stevens

Hailing from Pennsylvania, Wallace Stevens was a modernist poet born in 1879. He spent around 20 winters in Key West and penned the poem “The Idea of Order at Key West” in 1934, after publication of which he began to receive great recognition and by the 1950’s he would become to be widely regarded as one of America’s greatest contemporary poets and would be awarded a Pulitzer for his poetry. Stevens died from cancer in 1955.

Famous Artists in Key West

Winslow Homer

Born in Boston in 1835, artist Homer Winslow was a painter in the realist style, as well as being an illustrator. Homer was a landscape painter but is best known for his marine subjects. Having travelled in the States and also spending time in England, he spent many of his winters in different parts of Florida (including places such as Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West) and the Bahamas and also Cuba. He enjoyed the warmer weather (and fishing) in these parts and while in these areas he painted scenes of the sea and fishermen, mainly in watercolor but he also worked in oil throughout his life and also worked as an illustrator for the popular magazine, Harper’s Weekly. His 1903 “Key West, Hauling Anchor” is a timeless depiction of a sail boat in blue waters with vibrant billowy white sales. Homer died in 1910, aged 74, in Maine.

Mario Sanchez

Mario Sanchez was a Cuban-American artist born in 1908 and from the 1930’s he lived in Key West in the area called “Gato’s Village” which was the cigar-making neighborhood. Sanchez’ work specialized in wood carvings that he painted in vivid colors. The carvings generally portrayed everyday scenes of life in Key West. Defined as a folk artist he is considered one of the most important Cuban-American folk artist of the 20th century. Mario Sanchez died on 29th April 2005.

Wyland

While you may not know which artist painted it, you probably remarked on it, if you passed his amazing large scale marine based art work on the building that is currently the Key West Waterfront Brewery and was formerly the Key West Market down at the bight which is an apt setting for this mural featuring life size wales. Famous for his monumental whale paintings on public buildings (and even a gigantic art work on the hull of a Norwegian Cruise Liner ship), Wyland is a passionate environmental conservationist and is actively engaged in environmental outreach and eduction.

Ferron Bell

Bell is a really interesting artist that created works that can’t help make you smile when you see them. Along with appreciating his talent at creating art I really appreciate his wit, humor and cleverness in creating puntastic and quirky paintings. Bell was a self taught artist and died in Miami at the age of seventy in 2013.

Captain Outrageous

Captain Outrageous (1940-2007), with areal name of Norman Taylor, moved to Key West in the 1970’s after a career in Finance.

Richard Peter Matson

Born in Brooklyn Matson studied at the The Cooper Union Art School in New York City, followed by graduate studies at Yale University’s. After working in the field of advertising he arrived to Key West in the 1970’s from New York and lives and paints here now.

I actually attended the opening of his wonderful art exhibition “You don’t know Dick: The lesser known works of Richard Peter Matson” at the Custom House Museum in 2019. It was a really excellent and well presented exhibition showcasing the wide range of his exemplary talent - ranging from his oil paintings of houses, to his beautiful portraits, to his ads of the 1960s' during his career in New York city, working for J Walter Thompson, to his 1980's tongue in cheek greeting cards to his intricate decorative eggs.

Calvin Klein House, Key West - as photographed by me in 2019

Other Key West Notables and Celebrities

President Truman and The Little White House in Key West

Further Key West notables include President Truman who practically encamped to Key West for his Presidency and set up house in the “The Little White House” in the now Truman Annex. His wife was a fan of fishing and he was a fan of poker so the Key West lifestyle seems to have suited him! You can now visit The Little White House here in Key West and tours of the site are led by very knowledgeable guides who do a great job of recreating life in The Little White House during the Truman term.

Calvin Klein and his unique Key West House

Designer Calvin Klein also owned a house in Key West in the 1970’s. It is a very distinctive looking house at 712 Eaton Street. Previously called the Richard Peacon house it now seems to be referred to as the Octagon House.

Top Gun Actor Kelly McGillis

Actress Kelly McGillis left her mark on Key West, having set up a bar called “Kelly’s” in what was the original Pan Am Ticket Building in Key West. It has now changed ownership and currently a bar, restaurant and a brewery, with the possibly more apt name of “First Flight”.

Margaritaville shirts worn by Key West twins

Singer Songwriter Jimmy Buffett

You don’t have to be a “parrot head” to love the laid back island lifestyle music of Jimmy Buffett! And while in Key West you can visit his Margaritaville Restaurant on Duval Street and enjoy some great food and music. Here’s my twin sister and I in our Margaritaville shirts which we bought years ago in the store on Duval Street. They are practically vintage at this point!

Artist PIGSY and Key West

“Captain Outrageous vs. Frisbee King”Featuring the subject of the art work doing that ubiquitous and widespread Key West thing of cycling freely down Duval Street without a care in the world! — “Captain Outrageous vs. Frisbee King” by PIGSY
Featuring the subject of the art work doing that ubiquitous and widespread Key West thing of cycling freely down Duval Street without a care in the world!

And of course being that this is the PIGSY art website, I have to, of course, write about the connection artist PIGSY has to Key West. He first visited the island on his honeymoon in 2001 and then returned again in 2005 where he fell hard for the place. So hard, that he bought a vacation home to which he visited, from Ireland, numerous times until he sold it a few years later. Even after he sold his vacation home he continued to visit up until 2020 when Covid stymied travel from Europe to USA.

While on visits to Key West, PIGSY was inspired and conceived numerous artworks, including “Captain Outrageous vs. Frisbee King” and “Duval Flag”, which is an homage to the “Sea to Sea” rainbow flag which created in 2003 ran the length of Duval Steet in order to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the rainbow flag. “Duval Flag” was donated to the Key West Business Guild. PIGSY uses all of the places he has visited in the world as inspiration for his paintings, as a keen sailor he has travelled in the Greek and Turkish Isles as well as sailing around Elba off Italy - he also sailed in the Caribbean visiting islands like Bequia and Mustique.

PIGSY available in Effusion Gallery

PIGSY artwork is proudly represented in Key West by Effusion Art Gallery, centrally located on Duval Street. Find out more about Effusion Gallery, Key West here.