If a Magritte from Tate's collection had already visited Dallas and Nashville, what would make the Naples showing worth a special trip? There are two answers. Naples is the last American city on the tour. And the version opening at The Baker Museum on October 17 adds material that only this museum holds.
For anyone in Grey Oaks planning their season calendar, that changes how the show fits. The Surrealist International: Fifty Years of Dreams runs through February 14, 2027. That is just under four months, and it is the only stop in Florida.
The Third City, and the Last One
The exhibition is drawn entirely from the collection of Tate in the United Kingdom. Its first U.S. stop was the Dallas Museum of Art, from November 2, 2025 to March 22, 2026. The Frist Art Museum in Nashville showed it next, from May 22 to August 30, 2026. Naples is third. In its event listing, Gulfshore Life describes a show that was curated at the Tate, debuted in Paris, and "makes it to only three American cities."
No later U.S. host has been announced. On the published schedule, a resident who misses it here would need a flight to London, or luck with a future tour, to see this grouping again.
The show's starting point is a fact many visitors don't know. Surrealism began in Paris more than a century ago, but it didn't stay there. Artis-Naples describes the exhibition as following "the long trajectory and the broad reach of surrealism as a state of mind," as individuals and groups around the world took it up. The "international" in the title is the subject of the show.
What Naples Adds to the Tate Loan
Counts vary from city to city. The Frist announced its presentation as about 125 works from Tate. For Naples, Gulfshore Life reports about 100 traveling artworks plus around 30 archival pieces from The Baker Museum. Those archival pieces belong to the Naples presentation. They come from the museum on Pelican Bay Boulevard, not from London.
The works traveling from Tate include pieces people may know from art history books. The Baker's exhibition page highlights:
- René Magritte, The Future of Statues and The Reckless Sleeper
- Marcel Duchamp, Why Not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?
- Joan Miró, Women and Bird in the Moonlight
- Eileen Agar, Three Symbols
- Paul Nash, Landscape from a Dream
The museum's season announcement adds Jean Arp, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Dorothea Tanning. It also names four artists whose work it says "deserves to be better known": Kati Horna, Malangatana Ngwenya, Osamu Shiihara, and Lionel Wendt. These four carry the show's argument that Surrealism was a worldwide movement. They are the strongest reason to go even for someone who has seen plenty of Dalí.
Two Curators Bracket the Run
The person behind the show is speaking in Naples. Matthew Gale, Ph.D., is the former head of displays at Tate Modern. He co-curated Surrealism Beyond Borders, the 2021–22 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern. Artis-Naples says the current show builds on that exhibition.
The current lecture listing puts his talk on Friday, October 16, at 4 p.m. in the Ubben Signature Event Space, the day before the galleries open to the public. The July season announcement had scheduled an exhibition lecture for Tuesday, October 20, at 10 a.m. The ticketed event page is the newer listing. Confirm the date when you book.
Gulfshore Life reports that Stephanie D'Alessandro, the Met's curator of modern art, will also give a guest lecture during the run. Every Baker Museum lecture and public program includes same-day admission to the museum. A lecture ticket is also a gallery ticket, so you can hear the curator first and then walk the rooms with that context fresh.
Getting In, From Full Price to Free
The Baker Museum's admission page lists these rates for the season:
| Visitor | Admission |
|---|---|
| Adults | $10 |
| Full-time students, active military | $5 |
| SNAP cardholders | $1 |
| Children 17 and under | Free |
| Friends of Artis-Naples | Free |
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. It is closed Mondays. That makes Monday the one day a Surrealism visit can't happen. A weekday plan needs to start before the 4 p.m. close.
The evening option is Art After Hours. On the last Wednesday of each month, entry to all museum exhibitions is free from 6 to 9 p.m. The first one during this show is October 28, 2026, eleven days after opening.
For repeat visits, the Associate Friends level costs $75. It includes unlimited free museum admission and invitations to exhibition previews. No preview date has been published for this show. At the adult rate, a membership pays for itself on the eighth visit. With the season's other exhibitions, below, that many visits is realistic.
The Artis-Naples campus is at 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard. Parking is on campus and in partner lots across Ridgewood Drive and at Waterside Shops, with a free shuttle from the garage to the east entrance of Hayes Hall. The hours, rates, and parking pages are undated listings, so check them before you go.
October 17 Opens More Than One Gallery
The Surrealism show isn't the only exhibition starting that Saturday. Florida Contemporary 2026–27, the 14th edition of the Baker's annual survey, opens the same day and runs through June 27, 2027. This year it features Dustin Harewood, Nicario Jiménez-Quispe, Savannah Magnolia, and Anastasia Samoylova. One admission covers a Tate loan surveying fifty years of an international movement and four artists working in Florida now. They make an unusual pairing under one roof.
Two more shows overlap with the Surrealism run, and their timing shapes when to visit:
- Linling Lu: Fugue in 3 Voices is on view through January 3, 2027. Lu's circular paintings respond to music by Dvořák, Stravinsky, and Beethoven. On Friday, December 11, at 10 a.m., she joins Artistic and Music Director Alexander Shelley for "The Sound of Color."
- Baron Wolman: Capturing the Sound of an Era opens December 5. It shows photographs by Rolling Stone's first chief photographer and was organized with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A program on Wolman and the Hall of Fame runs that morning at 11 a.m.
From December 5 to January 3, all four shows are on view together: Surrealism, Florida Contemporary, Lu, and Wolman. That four-week stretch gives a single visit the most to see this season.
The Rest of the Calendar Around It
The Surrealism run overlaps with the opening of season elsewhere in central Naples, and a few dates are already fixed.
Naples Botanical Garden holds its Día de los Muertos Celebration on October 31 and November 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is included with Garden admission and free for members. Johnsonville Night Lights in the Garden runs November 27 through January 3. That's the same day the Linling Lu installation closes at the Baker, so the two make a holiday-week pairing before both end.
At Naples Zoo, the summer schedule ended September 30. Regular hours of 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. resumed October 1. The zoo's newest residents are on the South American Trail. Three toco toucan chicks, Mango, Cassava, and Guava, hatched this year. Mango, hatched April 6, was the first toco toucan chick ever born at the zoo.
Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk opens at the Baker on February 13, 2027, and the Surrealism galleries close the next day, February 14. For one weekend, both shows are on view.
The season calendar is a good part of what draws people to Naples, and it's a big part of how we at Taranto Team introduce out-of-town friends and buyers to the city. If you'd like a few Naples recommendations to go with an afternoon at the Baker, or a conversation about how Grey Oaks fits into the year around these dates, schedule a private consultation.
