Miami arts patroness, the ‘Queen of Wynwood,’ Myra Wexler dies at 72
“The Queen of Wynwood” is gone.
Arts lover, supporter and gadfly Myra Wexler, beloved by an arts community she promoted and celebrated, died Thursday, her friends posted on her Facebook page, often using the hashtag #queenofwynwood.”
For many who sought her guidance, that’s a title Wexler earned. Queen of Wynwood. The woman also known in her adopted neighborhood as “Yo Momma” was 72.
Details are few but members of the South Florida arts community who are mourning her noted she had been ill for awhile and hadn’t been posting items to her Facebook page as regularly as she once had.
As the COVID-19 pandemic basically shuttered galleries and museums and street fairs, Wexler’s silence on social media was especially felt. Wexler had lived in Hollywood to care for her mother who passed a few years ago but she ventured across the county line regularly.
‘She was everywhere’
“She was incredibly giving, engaged and supportive of the creative community. Her sense of flair, her love of life, she was everywhere,” said Cathy Leff, director of the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami, a cultural institution Wexler championed. “She loved putting on a good outfit, was really creative and a generous, joyous spirit. A moving work of art.”
For years, the white-haired Wexler, always sartorially elegant and delightfully out-there, was a fixture at practically every art walk and gallery opening in Wynwood. She promoted and befriended local artists and was known for hosting a monthly networker for artists at Wynwood Kitchen & Bar called Musings with Myra.
Remembering Myra
On Friday, many of these Miami artists, and those who love local art, celebrated her life on social media.
“Myra was every artist’s friend, a true enthusiast, and patroness of the arts,” posted artist Mano Nogueira of Mano Fine Art, who noted that her Musings with Myra gatherings often drew more than 100 people.
“But Myra made it feel like an intimate affair,’ Nogueira wrote. “I marveled at her ability to go around the room and introduce everyone by name and talk briefly about their work. She knew the importance of networking and encouraged artists to support each other.”
Writer and MiamiArtZine photographer Charlotte Libov would often see Wexler at her events or at exhibits around Miami and marveled at her energy and devotion.
”I have never met anyone as full of life as Myra,” Libov said. “She was always on the arts scene and always thinking of ways to help artists and promote our cultural life here in Florida. She will be terribly missed.”
Yo Momma in the House
By 2012, the #QueenofWynwood had become such a visual, iconic South Florida presence Wexler found herself the subject of a show. “Yo Momma in the House,” at the 12345 West Dixie Studio and Gallery, featured dozens of Miami artists in collaboration with photographer David Siqueiros who rendered her image via portraits, caricatures and other artworks.
That was a time when it wasn’t unusual to spot Wexler’s image on stickers all over town with the slogans “Art Is My Weapon,” adapted from New York artist TMNK aka The Man Nobody Knows, or “Obey Yo Momma,” a nod to her persona, emblazoned on them.
“In the ‘hood, she’s known as Yo Momma. And when her babies go tagging or ‘weed bombing,’ which involves turning overgrown patches the city won’t mow into Day-Glo gardens with spray paint, Momma doesn’t lecture. She gives props,” the Miami Herald reported in 2012.
At 64 then, Wexler told the Herald, “I’ve never gone tagging or weed bombing. But the morning after, I’ve gone out with my peeps and taken pictures of their work.” She kept a studio on Biscayne Boulevard and 69th Street to do her collage work.
The late street artist Scott “TMNK” Patterson, who died in 2016, was a fan who tagged Wexler’s image around Miami as a sign of respect. Wexler had met the New York artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex. He helped Wexler develop her youthful, street cred image.
“There is no one up earlier and who has more visibility or notoriety in the Miami art scene than Myra Wexler,” Patterson wrote on his blog in 2011, the Sun Sentinel reported. “Momma so gangsta museums and galleries often consult with her. Dammmmmmmmn, that’s my Momma.”
Growing up in South Florida
Wexler, who grew up in Coral Gables, the daughter of a father, Irving, who was president of Muzak South Florida and Reva, a community leader mother, who worked with the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, basked in the accolades.
“My line is that I forgot to get married or have children, but being out on the street, all these peeps, they’re my kids and they love me,” Wexler told the Sentinel when the artists held “Yo Momma in the House” in homage to her.
“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” Wexler told the Herald after she retired from visual merchandising to become her most famed persona. Wexler also once owned the former Red Road Kids Club in South Miami, “a boutique that sold fancy clothes and fancy toys for fancy little people,” the Herald reported.
That’s sounds so Wexler.
“I’ve always believed in building community,” Wexler had said. “I was born at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach. My parents met on New Year’s Eve, 1946, at the Orange Bowl Parade. I love all that I have witnessed Miami become.”
Documenting Miami’s arts scene
In December 2009, during Art Basel Miami Beach, Wexler helped document what Miami was becoming culturally. She planted herself on a seat outside a café on Northwest Second Avenue to report on Basel-related gallery shows as the growing art scene developed under her and, in part, because of her efforts to foster a community. She wrote about the scene for SocialMiami.com and held mixers for artists, gallerists and art patrons.
“I was so excited by what I saw as the start of a renaissance for Miami,” Wexler would tell the Herald. “That just fueled my imagination. You look around and you’re surrounded by all of these creative people — artists, musicians, all of them working. We live in a time of chaos. But it’s in times of chaos that the arts flourish. It’s the humanities that keep us pushing the ball forward. It’s about ascension. And I’m so glad that I get to be part of the glue.”
Details on services are not available.
This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 3:21 PM.
