Radko creates a line of charity ornaments every year. All net profits from “Braveheart” (above) will benefit the Liberty Fund of the American Red Cross in greater New York.

WINTER PARK, FLA. – Art Nouveau, the new style in international decorative art and architecture that developed at the end of the Nineteenth Century, is the focus of a year-long exhibition opening at the Morse Museum on February 5.

“Art Nouveau in Europe and America: From the Morse Collection,” featuring some 75 objects, represents the largest exhibition ever of Art Nouveau objects from the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition runs through January 5, 2003.

The exhibition includes furniture, architectural ornament, windows, lamps, jewelry, ceramics and art glass from more than 25 artists and designers working across nine countries as well as decorative objects introduced by Liberty and Co. in London, the famed gallery L’Art Nouveau in Paris and Tiffany & Co. in New York.

Among those artists represented are such noted figures of the movement as Hector Guimard, Emile Gallé and René Lalique of France and Louis Comfort Tiffany and Louis Sullivan of the United States.

Art Nouveau – literally French for “new art” – was the first internationally-based at-tempt to transform visual culture through a commitment to the idea of the modern. Its practitioners, drawing mainly from nature for inspiration, rejected historical styles and classical values, preferring asymmetrical forms and attenuated curves in their design.

The late Hugh and Jeannette McKean assembled the Morse collection over a period of five decades, focusing especially on art of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Mrs McKean founded the Morse in 1942. Mr McKean was its director until his death in 1995.

The museum today houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, a major collection of American art pottery and representative collections of late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century American paintings.

Admission is $3 for adults. Through May, admission is free for everyone on Friday evenings from 4 to 8 pm. Hours are 9:30 am to 8 pm Friday; 9:30 am to 4 pm Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday, and 1 to 4 pm Sunday. The museum is at 445 North Park Avenue. Telephone 407-645-5311.