An enchanting date night, or afternoon, does not have to break the bank. A marvelous museum is waiting for you to explore – and it doesn't cost a thing. With captivating exhibitions and intimate tours, the Rollins Museum of Art invites you to explore art that sparks conversation and connection. Here’s everything you need to know about visiting the museum.
It's one of the best free things to do in Orlando.
Exploring the Rollins Museum of Art
The Rollins Museum of Art, also known as the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, offers free admission. Founded in 1978, the museum showcases rotating exhibitions and programs. It’s considered a teaching museum, providing tours and raising questions while welcoming multiple perspectives about art from different centuries and cultures.
David Matteson, Associate Curator of Education, gave us an interactive gallery tour filled with enthusiasm, history, and a fun activity at the end. He shared that while the museum contains 6,000 objects in its permanent collection, only about 1% of a museum’s inventory is on view at a time, which is the average for art museums.
“Our collection is always growing, and we want to showcase that,” David said.
Free public tours are available on weekends, and private tours can be arranged for groups of up to 30. On average, tours last about 45 minutes to an hour. Plus, the museum hosts evening events, making it a popular date spot in Winter Park.
The museum also supports its communities as a bilingual museum with artwork text in English and Spanish and tours offered in English and Spanish.
Appreciating Culture & Inclusivity
In 2018, Dr. Carbonell became a Rollins Museum of Art curator and started offering tours in Spanish shortly after.
“When Dr. Carbonell started here, she was adamant about wanting to offer tours in Spanish. She tells the story,” David said. “At the end of every tour, people are always so excited. They say to her, ‘We need more like this.’ I think that's reflective of a need in our community.”
One of the exhibitions we viewed, Nostalgia for My Island: Puerto Rican Painting from the Museo de Arte de Ponce (1786–1962), contains artwork in which the artists focused on sharing and preserving the Puerto Rican identity. It’s the first time these pieces have been presented outside of Puerto Rico, and the exhibition explores three themes: My Island, My People, and My Home.
“It’s that moment of recognition that these are paintings can engage and speak to a major part of our community,” David said.
Interacting with Art
We also stepped into an audio booth in the Nostalgia for My Island exhibition, listening to excerpts from Puerto Ricans who moved to Central Florida between the 1940s and 1980s, highlighting memories from when they lived in Puerto Rico. If you step into the booth, you can add your own recording, which will be added to the Orange County Regional History Center archive.
“I love those through lines that we can look at these and find a sense of connection with the past in an important way,” David said.
Another featured exhibition, Critical Reading, explores the concept of reading through text-based works, including a notable video piece by South African artist Bloom Kendrick.
There’s also What's New, a rotating exhibition of recent acquisitions showcasing European, American, and Chinese American artworks from the museum's collection.
Enjoying Creative Activities
After most museum tours and during some events, you’ll boost your creativity with drawing, writing, poetry, and other activities. These prompts are meant to keep guests engaged and think outside the box.
We ended our tour with a date-night special: building dating profiles based on the current exhibit portraits! We went through a series of questions, such as “How would you describe the subject’s personality? What details in the painting inform your answer?”
These questions helped us analyze the portrait, critically considering the artwork in front of us. We thought, what would a modern-day “about me” section look like for this person? What would their interests be? How would they convey those interests on paper?
“It's not just about the passive looking. Museums should be fun,” David said.
Spotlighting Professors in Exhibitions
The museum also highlights Rollins College professors with the Art Encounters exhibition. The gallery features quotes on the walls from professors in various departments, including political science, biology, art, and social entrepreneurship.
“It's an exhibition that has works from the permanent collection paired with quotes from some of our professors here at the college,” David said. “We started planning for this exhibition with the hope of sharing authority with some of the knowledge bears here on campus.”
The museum connects everything it plans and shows to a liberal arts curriculum taught at Rollins College, encouraging curiosity and continuous learning.
“I love the engagement with our students,” David said. “They come into the museum, and they're a little hesitant or feel a bit intimidated. Then, through a tour or an activity, we break down those barriers. It's not about trying to train all of our students to become curators or art historians or artists; those are important, but it's about making sure that they're curious citizens of the world, that they can come to a museum and ask questions and see the relevance of a painting from 1561.”
Plan Your Next Rollins Museum of Art Date Night
Museum admission is free, making it a cost-friendly evening out.
Free museum parking is easily accessible at the Rollins Garage at the corner of Fairbanks and Ollie Avenues, about a 5- to 8-minute walk to the museum. You can park in the garage, walk along the sidewalk, and get a glimpse of Lake Virginia. You’ll see breathtaking views of trees, wildlife, and boats on the lake. There’s also a limited number of museum visitor parking spaces in front of the museum.
While you’re in the area, you can also grab a bite to eat on Park Avenue or check out other Winter Park things to do. Enjoy the endless possibilities during your museum date night out!
Museum Hours:
- Closed on most Mondays. Check the museum website for updated information.
- Tuesday: 10am–7pm.
- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 10am–4pm
- Saturday, Sunday: 12pm–5pm.
Rollins Museum of Art
1000 Holt Ave Box 2765
Winter Park, FL 32789
407-646-2526
https://www.rollins.edu/rma/
Featured image by Louis Diaz