WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- There’s a monkey on the island; impeccably dressed, martini-adjacent, and deeply Palm Beach. Monkeying Around Palm Beach is the latest portrait series by Palm Beach resident artist Serge Strosberg , reimagining Johnnie Brown, architect Addison Mizner’s famously pet monkey (and near-mythical island character), as a modern avatar of Palm Beach life.
Johnnie, whose gravestone still sits quietly in the courtyard of Pizza al Fresco just off Worth Avenue, was once a fixture of Mizner’s social world in the Roaring Twenties, attending parties, accompanying the architect around town, and even “running” for mayor. Strosberg first encountered Johnnie not in a museum, but during a walk on the island, when that headstone stopped him short and sparked a deeper exploration of Palm Beach mythology.
In Strosberg’s hands, Johnnie becomes a mirror for the island itself. Rendered in jewel like oil and egg tempera using mischtechnik, a 15th-century Flemish indirect painting method that combines egg tempera and oil-based glazes, the monkey appears lounging poolside at The Breakers, pacing yacht decks, courtside in pastel blazers, and holding court at Swifty’s dressed in reimagined Lilly Pulitzer prints and Maus & Hoffman stripes. The scenes feel instantly recognizable to anyone who lives on or loves the island: elegant, theatrical, and just a little self-aware…