A transformative gift steeped in family tradition and deep Pasco County roots will usher the acclaimed Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College (SPC) into a new era of long-term financial stability and high-tech expansion.
A $1 million donation from Mary Mitchell Avery and brother Dewey Mitchell honors the legacy of their late brother James W. Mitchell Jr., a Tampa gallery owner who, along with the siblings’ late mother Dorothy Mitchell, provided invaluable support for innovative artistry in the region and beyond.
Most notably, Mitchell Jr. and his mother made vital gallery space available for the influential Berghoff-Cowden Editions printmaking workshop, which collaborated with internationally known contemporary artists. Today, the museum on SPC’s Tarpon Springs Campus is home to the Dorothy Mitchell Collection, which includes the complete archive of prints produced by Lois Berghoff and Dorothy Cowden as well as many other leading printmaking artists.
“We are incredibly grateful to Mary Mitchell Avery and Dewey Mitchell for establishing an endowment at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in memory of their brother,” said SPC Foundation Executive Director Jesse Turtle. “It is an inspirational gift that will live on perpetually, providing critical sustainable support for the museum. We are incredibly grateful for their generosity.”
“The James W. Mitchell Jr. Memorial is in honor of our dear brother Jim, whose love of the arts was a lifelong passion,” Avery and Mitchell said in a joint statement. “This gift comes with the hope that it will inspire both artists and art enthusiasts. We also hope it will help in sustaining the mission of Leepa-Rattner for many years to come. We love you, Jim, and are so humbly honored to make this gift in your name.”
This marks only the second gift of $1 million or more in the museum’s 22-year history, and its impact will be profound, according to Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art (LRMA) Executive Director Christine Renc-Carter.
“We’ve gone through a huge transition in the last several years, and this comes at a critical time for us,” she said. “It will help us with the reaccreditation process with the American Alliance of Museums — a distinction held by fewer than 6% of U.S. museums. And it will strengthen us greatly as we chart a new, post-COVID course as a college department since 2021. This gift marks one of our first efforts in joining together with the SPC Foundation to secure the future of the museum. It truly sets the tone for what is to come.”
Renc-Carter’s vision for the museum’s future includes an emphasis on interactive technology, particularly with an interactive mural based on Pablo Picasso’s 1937 masterpiece, Guernica, and its powerful anti-war statement. The mural — the only authorized full-scale reproduction of Picasso’s work in the world — was a focal point of LRMA when it opened in 2002, featuring narration and other audio-visual components to create a theatrical presentation. However electronic issues, such as outdated analog wiring, have hindered the attraction in recent years.
Avery, a past member of the museum board, wants to upgrade the Guernica interactive mural with enhanced digital technology, and the museum is now consulting with technology experts to make that happen. The upgraded mural will eventually enjoy an enhanced place of prominence in a museum that features more than 6,000 works of 20th and 21st-century art.
“This gift by the Mitchells will further our goal of making this museum a destination and a truly interactive space,” Renc-Carter added. “We are considered a learning lab not only for the college and its students but for the community, where we are a cultural hub of North Pinellas County. We’re the only fine arts museum within some 20 miles. And the cultural experiences here are cross-disciplinary, infusing art, science, math, technology, and humanities.”
The museum also entwines the Mitchell Family history. Dorothy Mitchell, a member of the Pasco County School Board, helped run a sprawling Pasco County cattle ranch with her late husband James W. Mitchell Sr., a community leader and philanthropist and the namesake of Mitchell High School in Trinity. In fact, the couple met and fell in love at SPC. Eventually, Mrs. Mitchell became a patron of Berghoff and Cowden, helping Tampa Bay flourish as a center for collaborative and experimental printmaking, attracting many top artists in the 1980s and 1990s.
After Berghoff-Cowden’s lease expired and the University of Tampa took over the space, the workshop relocated to a nearby gallery on Bay to Bay Boulevard. The gallery’s owner, Mitchell Jr., converted a former racing stable on his family’s ranch into a print studio/workshop, housing for a time Berghoff and Cowden before they left to pursue different artistic directions. The stable at the Mitchell Ranch became Berghoff Fine Art Editions, which continued until 2006.
Mary Mitchell Avery and Dewey Mitchell — a Florida state high school wrestling champion, an All-Southeastern Conference linebacker for legendary coach Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, and captain of the U.S. Judo team in the 1984 Olympics — returned the family to the museum fold in the past few years during the tenure of new museum leader Renc-Carter.
An artist in her own right and daughter of prominent Tampa Bay painter Bill Renc, she took the museum reigns in June 2022 after serving as its curator since 2016. Among the first moves of Renc-Carter, who previously worked with galleries throughout the Baltimore-Washington area, was to create a five-year strategic plan, which helped underscore to Avery the pressing needs the museum faced. Then, working with the SPC Foundation, the landmark gift came to life in December.
For more information about LRMA, visit leeparattner.org. To learn about the SPC Foundation, visit spcollege.edu/foundation.
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