Key West Gallery

Key West Gallery has been at 601 Duval since July 2006, privately owned and personally curated by Kellie Alpert, and it is one of the largest operations of its kind on the island. The roster runs to roughly seventy internationally published artists working in oil, acrylic, watercolor and sculpture, across everything from impressionist landscape to flat-out pop, so the room does not have a single look. That is deliberate. It is a gallery built for browsing rather than for one aesthetic.

The artist to walk in for is Bill Mack. Mack is a sculptor best known for bas relief and cast bronze, with work in the basketball, baseball, tennis, hockey, figure skating and cowboy halls of fame, and commissions at the Minnesota Twins' Target Field. The piece of his story that makes people stop, though, is the Hollywood Sign. Mack acquired metal from the original 1923 sign before its replacement, and he carves portraits of Hollywood stars into it, so the material and the subject are the same thing. He also restored the sign's "H" in 2012 and was given a Certificate of Recognition by the Los Angeles City Council for it. Key West Gallery carries him across six separate collections, from relief sculpture to the Hollywood Sign paintings.

Elsewhere on the walls are Pino, Peter Max, Mackenzie Thorpe, Charles Fazzino, Michael Godard, Alexandra Nechita, Thomas Arvid, Luis Sottil, Maya Eventov, Alexei Butirskiy, Gil Bruvel and The Frogman, among many others. The gallery hosts live painting demonstrations when visiting artists are in town, which is the best time to come if you can time it. They will also source work by artists they do not stock, they price match authorized dealers, and shipping and insurance within the United States are included, so a large piece does not have to become a logistics problem.

Practically, the hours are the thing. Key West Gallery is open until 10:00pm Sunday through Thursday and 11:00pm on Friday and Saturday. Most galleries in town are dark by six. Key West Gallery holds a Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice award.