Wyland Gallery of the Florida Keys

Wyland Gallery of the Florida Keys is at 623 Duval Street and is built around the work of Wyland, the marine artist whose name has been attached to whales for forty years. He started after seeing gray whales off the California coast at fourteen, and what made him famous is the Whaling Walls: enormous outdoor murals of life-size whales and marine life, more than a hundred of them worldwide, the hundredth painted in Beijing in 2008, the largest covering more than three acres on the side of the Long Beach Convention Center. His work has appeared on California and Florida specialty license plates, on a set of United Nations stamps, and across the hull of a cruise ship.

In 1993 he founded the Wyland Foundation, a nonprofit that works on getting children back in contact with the ocean through art and that has funded the murals, and whose work has widened out from whales into urban runoff, nutrient pollution and marine debris. If you have ever wondered what the connection is between a gallery on Duval Street and a whale the size of a building, that is it.

The gallery is not a single-artist room. Alongside Wyland's originals, limited editions, bronzes and lucite sculptures, it carries Michael Cheval, Jim Warren, Walfrido Garcia, Clarita Brinkerhoff, David Wight's glass work, Stephen Harlan, Stephen Muldoon, Steven Quartly, Velia Newman, Oscar Zanetti and Chris DeRubeis. There is professional framing on site, private viewings can be arranged, and the gallery runs artist appearances through the season, which are the best evenings to come.

Practically, it keeps the longest hours of any gallery in town: ten in the morning until ten at night Sunday through Thursday, and until eleven on Friday and Saturday. It is run day to day by Jay Shaffer, Guy Vincent and Bobby Gray, who partnered with Wyland on the galleries. There is a second Wyland gallery in Sarasota.