The Wolfsonian-FIU

06/08/2026

Did you know one of the first modern public banks was founded in Genoa, Italy, in 1407? 💰💵 🏦

The Bank of Saint George helped shape the financial systems we still live, and this insurance poster from 1922 evokes that history of commerce, banking, and maritime risk.

Like today’s mascots, this poster uses a memorable character to make insurance feel more trustworthy. But instead of a gecko or a duck, we see a giant guardian figure towering over the city, to help sell one of the unavoidable realities of this newly emerging modern world: another monthly bill.

Currently on view on the 6th floor in “La Superba: Genoa and The Wolfsoniana” until July 5, 2026.

📰 Poster, “Esperia” Assicurazioni e Riassicurazioni Generali [“Esperia” General Insurance and Reinsurance], 1922–23. Tremator (pseudonym for Severino Trematore), designer. Barabino & Graeve, Genoa, printer. Offset lithograph.

05/24/2026

Dive bombers over Miami in 1941 👀

It’s Memorial Day weekend on South Beach—with fighter jets, bombers, helicopters, and fireworks overhead. For those of us in the museum, we definitely hear them!

So, we thought it’d be interesting to find something in the collection related to this.. and sure enough, we found an amazing photograph of U.S. Navy student pilots testing bombers over Miami in 1941.

It’s amazing all the different ways history echoes & rhymes!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! ✈️

Collection, Gift of Michael Hughes
📸 Photograph, “Dive bombers in flight,” c. 1941.

05/21/2026

Treasure hunt in the museum! 🔎🏛️

Tonight, starting at 6pm, we’re hosting Miami Beach Culture Crawl with cyanotype and postcard-making workshops. To celebrate, we’ve hidden six original double-exposure photographs by New York artist Fred Cray throughout the museum.

Find one, and it’s yours. 📸

Cray has been giving away his film-based photographs since 2008—a project later featured in The New York Times. 📰 A longtime Wolfsonian visitor, he returns whenever he’s in Miami, and left these six blue-toned works with us during a recent visit. 🌀📬

Use the photos as clues to their locations. Then join us to make some fun blue photographs of your own during our cyanotype + postcard workshop!

✨ Miami Beach Culture Crawl | Make Your Own Postcard ✨
📅 Thursday, May 21
⏰ 6–9pm
📍 The Wolfsonian–FIU
🏛️ 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach

05/18/2026

Love museums? Go outside!

Before The Wolfsonian–FIU was a museum, it began with founder Micky Wolfson collecting hotel room keys as a child—a perfect origin story for South Beach, where design history lives not just in the museum, but in hotel lobbies, restaurant menus, architectural flourishes, and all the curious details that often go unnoticed. Even The Wolfsonian was originally a storage company built nearly 100 years ago, as a fortress against hurricanes. These stories are everywhere.

So, this International Museum Day, we’re highlighting one of our favorite museums in the city: South Beach!

We’re beginning with an elegant example of postwar Miami Modern architecture—the former DiLido Hotel, built in 1955 and designed by Morris Lapidus.

Lapidus helped define the MiMo style, moving beyond Art Deco’s aerodynamic shapes toward theatrical glamour, sweeping curves, and dramatic entrances. He designed the iconic DiLido, Fontainebleau, and Eden Roc resorts, and Lincoln Road. He was also a patron of The Wolfsonian.

Today, the DiLido is The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, just a few blocks from The Wolfsonian and directly across Lincoln Road.

As an official hotel partner of The Wolfsonian, The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach invites guests to make their stay in South Beach a little more interesting by taking a closer look at the many ways society is designed. Walk to The Wolfsonian and show your Ritz-Carlton room key for complimentary museum admission.

05/17/2026

Painted in 1928 by Argentinian artist Jorge Larco, “Pareja” celebrates modern, cosmopolitan nightlife at the height of the Art Deco era. While U.S. Prohibition pushed cocktail culture underground, Buenos Aires—then known as the “Paris of South America”—embraced it freely. Here, Larco gives us a glimpse into a wondrous, moody world suspended in time by two Deco lovers. What cocktail do you think she’s making? 🍸

“Modern Design Across Borders” explores how life was redesigned around the world at the beginning of the 20th century through objects, materials, and ideas—with different galleries dedicated to streamlined transportation, the birth of Art Deco, coffee & tea design, plywood, and cocktail culture—which is where you’ll find this beautiful watercolor on view through June 28.

Collection, Gift of
🖼️ “Pareja” [Couple], 1928. Jorge Larco, artist. Watercolor on paper.

05/11/2026

Some museum objects were made to be looked at closely. This one was made to ride.

Manufactured by BMW in 1962, the R 60/2 has instant old-movie magic: black paint, bright chrome, red leather, and a very tempting sidecar—evoking images of a cartoon chase scene or a very stylish European road trip.

Artist and motorcyclist Robert Chambers was one of the rare people lucky enough to ride it, driving the motorcycle from the home of its donors, Dr. David and Linda Frankel, to The Wolfsonian–FIU.

Now on view in “Modern Design Across Borders,” our iconic BMW motorcycle invites a different kind of ride: a closer look at how modern design movements emerged between the world wars and influenced every part of our daily lives.

🏍️ “Motorcycle, BMW R 60/2,” 1962. Bayerische Motoren Werke, Munich, Germany, manufacturer.

🏍️ “Sidecar, Steib S500,” c. 1955. Steib, Nuremberg, Germany, manufacturer.

04/05/2026

Falling down the rabbit hole… 🕳️🐇

Made for the Federal Art Project in 1935 under the direction of Edris Eckhardt—a pioneering female artist who led its ceramics and sculpture division—this figurine brings “Alice in Wonderland” into the world of American design.

Born Edythe Eckhardt, she later changed her name to Edris as she navigated the art world during a time when women were often passed over for opportunities.

Like the Cheshire Cat, she reshaped how she appeared and moved through the world—did you notice the one hiding here?

Collection, Gift of
🏺 Figurine, “Alice in Wonderland series,” 1935–36. Edris Eckhardt, artist. Federal Art Project, maker.

04/01/2026

03/29/2026

The painted floral decorations of this desk created 125 years ago show the pictorial talent of Alberto Issel, a well-known Italian landscape artist whose career was interrupted around 1880 due to an eye illness.

His decorative arts workshop in Genoa became one of the most successful in Italy by the turn of the century, employing over 70 skilled artisans to create Liberty Style (or Stile Floreale) furniture—the Italian variant of Art Nouveau.

And if you look at the space below the desk, there’s another surprise: a beautiful scene depicting fairies, cherubs, and classic Art Nouveau floral forms printed on soft velveteen, almost like a hidden painting built into the furniture.

Currently on view in our exhibition “La Superba: Genoa and The Wolfsoniana” through June 28, 2026.

Collection, Gift of
🪑 Desk for a lady, 1901. Alberto Issel, designer. Alberto Issel Workshop, Genoa, manufacturer.

02/13/2026

🧸✨Jellycat plush toys escape our Design Store and explore our world’s fairs exhibition after hours—courtesy of social media intern (and stop-motion artist!) Sophia Monteiro.

The Wolfsonian is many things—a museum, library, event space, and a perfect gift shop.

One of the many cool things we carry in the Design Store are Jellycats, and in Sophia’s reel, two of our plush pals sneak out for a little adventure… then wind down with a movie.

Cozy ending guaranteed.