Qualla: Appleton Museum of Art https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/ocala-appleton-museum-pano01.jpg Qualla: Appleton Museum of Art https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art Appleton Museum of Art: Introduction https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art/ Photo credit AppletonMuseum, CC BY-SA 4.0. Eighty thousand square feet of Italian travertine marble have no business standing in a Florida horse town. Yet there it is on East Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala: the Appleton Museum of Art, a two-story building so lavishly clad in stone that it looks transplanted from Rome. A long reflecting pool mirrors its pale facade. Fountains play across 11.3 landscaped acres. Inside, more than 24,000 works of art span continents and millennia, from pre-Columbian jade to Rodin bronzes to Andy Warhol prints. The museum exists because a business magnate and a former Hollywood actress fell in love with Florida's horse country and decided it deserved a world-class art collection.

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/djjw-appleton-museum-of-art-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Appleton Museum of Art: The Magnate and the Actress https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Arthur I. Appleton made his fortune in business and spent it on art, racehorses, and marble. In the mid-1970s, he and his wife, the former film actress Martha O'Driscoll, bought land in the Ocala area and established Bridlewood Farm, a thoroughbred breeding and training facility....

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/djjw-appleton-museum-of-art-the-magnate-and-the-actress.mp3 0:06 2 full Appleton Museum of Art: From Bridle Bits to Kimonos https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The permanent collection sprawls across seven major areas, each reflecting a different thread of Appleton's eclectic taste. The Equine collection honors Ocala's horse heritage with artifacts spanning over 3,000 years, from Eurasian Steppe Bronze Age bridle bits to contemporary eq...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/djjw-appleton-museum-of-art-from-bridle-bits-to-kimonos.mp3 0:06 3 full Appleton Museum of Art: Africa, Collected Firsthand https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Cvwayne, CC BY-SA 4.0. The African art collection carries a provenance story rarer than most. Arthur Appleton purchased much of it from the estate of Dr. Victor David DuBois, who assembled it during years of government work across the continent. DuBois acquired many pieces directly from the artists and...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/djjw-appleton-museum-of-art-africa-collected-firsthand.mp3 0:06 4 full Appleton Museum of Art: Maritime Dreams and Modern Visions https://qualla.com/appleton-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Arthur Appleton served in the United States Navy during World War II, and his Maritime Art collection reflects a sailor's eye for the sea. Paintings of historic sailing ships by British artists William Adolphus Knell, Richard Brydges Beechey, and Montague Dawson line the walls al...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/j/w/appleton-museum-of-art-wp/djjw-appleton-museum-of-art-maritime-dreams-and-modern-visions.mp3 0:06 5 full