Sculpture in Motion Turns Ten, and the Cars Still Leave El Cid by the Middle Bridge

What makes a 1939 Bugatti a sculpture? On Saturday, November 14, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens gives its answer for the tenth time. The Gardens is a two-acre property at 253 Barcelona Road where Ann Weaver Norton's monumental works still stand among the palms. That day it sets one-of-a-kind pre- and post-war automobiles among her sculptures. At 4:15 p.m. those same cars start their engines and drive to Palm Beach.

The name explains the day. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the cars are exhibition pieces on a lawn, judged on how they look. At 4:15 p.m. they are a procession on public streets, leaving El Cid, crossing the Royal Park Bridge and finishing at the Flagler Museum. Ten years in, everything about the day still points toward that move.

Ten Years of Moving Cars Onto a Sculpture Lawn

The first Sculpture in Motion was held on Nov. 18, 2017. Palm Beach Daily News reported a dozen cars that year, built between 1925 and 1966. Eight were pre-World War II and four were postwar. One of them was Jeffrey Fisher's 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio. Fisher and his wife, Frances, are still listed as founders and co-chairmen, together with Audrey and Martin Gruss.

The show grew without losing the shape it started with. According to the Gardens' page for the 2019 edition, the second year drew more than 1,000 visitors. The third planned a display of 12 to 14 cars, and its award winners included a 1931 Bugatti Type 51 Grand Prix and a 1929 Duesenberg Model J LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaeton.

By the fifth edition in 2021, the moving part had become much larger than the lawn display. Palm Beach Daily News reported 40 cars in the public Grand Tour parade that year. The exhibition was set to include a Rolls-Royce Henley Roadster, an Auburn Boattail Speedster and a Maserati A6GCS. In other words, the parade had grown to roughly three times the size of the original show.

The cars on the lawn kept getting rarer. Lifestyle Media Group's preview of the eighth edition in 2024 listed these:

• 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d'Este Coupé
• 1937 Bugatti Type 57C Vanvooren Convertible
• 1938 Delahaye 135 MS Torpedo Grand Sport
• 1936 Pierce Arrow V-12 Country Club Roadster
• 1950 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Riva "Serenissima" Berlinetta
• 1969 Ferrari GT 2+2

The ninth edition was held on November 15, 2025. Cars were again shown on the main lawn, and the day ended with a parade across the Royal Park Bridge to the Flagler Museum, as shown in Palm Beach Daily News' photo gallery. The tenth follows the same plan. The organizers have not published a 2026 list of cars.

How the Day Moves From Lawn to Street

The event page lays out the day in three parts. Each one leads into the next.

1. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Community Exhibition. Rare pre- and post-war cars are set up outdoors among the sculptures, with historian-led tours. Visitors vote on the awards: Most Artistic, Most Elegant, People's Choice, Sculptural Speed and the Young Connoisseurs' Award.
2. 3 p.m., America's 250 tribute. "A Nation Remembers: Songs and Stories of Valor" honors Gold Star Families, veterans and Friends of Fisher House. Rear Admiral Thomas Lynch takes part, the Palm Beach Atlantic University Choir performs patriotic music, and a color guard presents the colors. Senator George LeMieux chairs the tribute, and Amanda and Charles Schumacher are honorary chairmen.
3. 4:15 p.m., The Grand Tour Parade of Cars. Kathleen and Lew Crampton are grand marshals.

Two of the award names, Most Artistic and Sculptural Speed, show what the Gardens is asking visitors to judge. The vote is about form, the same way a sculpture is judged, and engineering is not the question. The 2026 featured curator is Chuck Mitchell, a classic-car collector, restorer and concours judge.

Tickets for the exhibition are sold through the Gardens' registration page:

The last line of the table is for collectors. To enter a car in the Grand Tour, the Gardens asks owners to email their contact and vehicle details, and staff will follow up.

Parking is not on Barcelona Road. From noon to 4 p.m. the Gardens lists two lots on Flagler Drive, at Palm Beach Day Academy, 1901 S. Flagler Drive, and Family Church, 1101 S. Flagler Drive. Shuttles run from both to the Gardens.

The Route Runs North, Then Crosses the Middle Bridge

The 2026 Grand Tour route map tells spectators to gather on Flagler Drive across from the Gardens. Cars leave the Gardens, turn left to head north on S. Flagler Drive, then turn right onto the Royal Park Bridge, which the map also calls the Middle Bridge.

The map traces this loop on the island:

• Royal Palm Way to Cocoanut Row, heading north
• Cocoanut Row to Bradley Place, then North Lake Way to Country Club Road
• Country Club Road to North Lake Trail, then east on Mediterranean Road
• South on N. Ocean Boulevard, back by way of Country Club Road to N. County Road
• South on N. County Road, west on Royal Poinciana Way, then south on Cocoanut Row

The finish is at the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, 1 Whitehall Way. The day starts at a sculptor's former home and studio in El Cid and ends at the museum named for Henry Morrison Flagler, and for one afternoon the parade connects them.

For anyone who lives along the route, the map gives the order of streets, which tells you roughly where on the island the cars will appear as the parade moves. Flagler Drive across from the Gardens is the only viewing spot the map names in its directions.

The Theme Stays on Barcelona Road Into January

The day ends but the theme stays. The Gardens' 2026–2027 exhibitions page lists Nick Mele Photography: Parked for the Season from November 13, 2026, to January 10, 2027. The series stages classic cars in cinematic scenes at well-known Palm Beach properties and was made to mark the tenth Sculpture in Motion. PALMER's season preview dates the opening to November 14, the day of the show. Either way, once the lawn is cleared, the cars move into photographs and stay up for about two more months.

They share the season with In Full Bloom: Flowers in the Garden, which runs October 21, 2026, through January 10, 2027. Bruce Helander, the Gardens' seventh Artist in Residence, made the pressed-flower collage portraits. Subjects include the Mona Lisa, Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe, Marjorie Merriweather Post and Jacqueline Kennedy. Both shows can be seen Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Gardens is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

PALMER reports that all of this falls within the Gardens' 50th anniversary. Ann Weaver Norton saw the property as an "ensemble of arts and nature," and the anniversary season covers "art, automobiles, jazz, flowers, gardens" along with an exhibition about Norton herself. Over the same years that the Gardens went from 40 to 50, Sculpture in Motion went from a dozen cars on the lawn to a parade into Palm Beach. Automobiles are now one of the main subjects of the Gardens' season.

The next big change on the lawn comes after the holidays. Alexander Calder: Horizons runs January 15 to March 15, 2027. The Gardens calls it the first exhibition in more than 50 years to bring Calder's sculptures, paintings, gouaches, tapestries and prints together in Palm Beach. Mobiles are among the works the exhibition draws on, so the season moves from sculpture that drives to sculpture that turns in the air.

At The Costello-Deitz Group, we pay close attention to the design, craftsmanship and restoration that make a single object irreplaceable, whether it is a prewar Bugatti on the lawn on Barcelona Road or a house on one of the streets the parade passes. If you're thinking about a property near the route, or want to talk through the market around El Cid, contact us for a private consultation.