3-minute read
If you’ve ever stopped by Levy’s Imperial Tire & Auto Service in Dixieland, you might notice beautiful paintings decorating the walls of the repair shop’s lobby.
The inside looks more like an art museum than a store that sells tires, with more than three dozen paintings on display.
“People come in here and go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this existed.’ We randomly get people who come just to look around,” said Jack White, the shop’s service manager, who added it’s free to stop by and look at the paintings.
Art and nature brought them together: White said the owner of the shop, Levy Harrison, became friends with one of the Highwaymen painters, Robert Butler, who also lived in Lakeland.
Robert Butler’s son, Daniel, estimated his father and Harrison began their friendship 40 to 50 years ago.
Daniel recalled Harrison and his wife attending a painting demonstration led by Robert, and Levy wanting to learn to paint.
As a gift, Harrison’s wife, Gloria, arranged for Levy to take painting classes with Robert.
From there, the friendship blossomed. Robert would stop by and paint inside the shop, and Levy collected his art. (There are paintings from Robert that date back to 1991 on the walls.)
Levy added his own paintings to the collection, and put them on display.
Levy invited Robert to host painting classes inside the tire shop. Eventually, Levy took over teaching the classes and did so for at least 15 years.
“When covid hit, Levy stopped that. He used to have 15 to 20 students here twice a week, on Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Maybe one day he’ll bring it back,” White said.
When his father, Robert, died in 2014, Daniel Butler began stopping by the tire shop to paint. He’s there typically two to three times a week, and commissions his artwork to customers.
“We see them as family. All of us (my siblings and I) at one time or another have come through Levy’s place and set up and painted,” said Daniel, explaining he is one of nine children.
“The crowd that comes up there, the majority of them are landowners and they enjoy hunting and fishing and they relate their experiences to me and it gives me fuel to create different scenes. It works out pretty good.”
Daniel said many of their customers pay for paintings that depict their properties.
Florida’s natural beauty: The paintings depict the essence of Florida wildlife, with birds, deer and turkeys sitting by the lake or riverside. Some of the landscape paintings showcase abandoned country shacks.
Daniel said he and his father loved to fish and hunt.
“Detailed and soulful rendition of the Florida backwoods,” Daniel said, describing the inspiration for the paintings.
“Being raised in the woods and the country, when you go to hunt, you see things and that sticks with you. I’m able to call up things I see all the time. The way different trees and plants grow and the way animals respond.”
Decorating the walls of the tire shop are also newspaper clippings, describing Robert’s life.
He was well known among the Highwaymen, a group of African American landscape painters who would travel the highways around Fort Pierce and Lake Okeechobee. They would often sell their paintings alongside the road.
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