Artist Noel Suarez, pictured with his paintings and brushes, brings his background in ballet and classical art to his role as artist-in-residence at the Miami Design Preservation League's Art Deco Museum. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
When Miami Beach’s historic Art Deco buildings first captured artist Noel Suarez’s imagination, he was living in Boston. Painting was helping him recover from a knee injury that would cut short his professional dance career.
In Cuba, he danced with the Havana Opera Ballet and Alberto Alonso's company, in Costa Rica, he spent seven months working as a company teacher and soloist with the National Dance Company, while also teaching at the San Jose National Dance School.
He spent two years with Boston Ballet, then four with New England Dinosaur Dance Company.
Noel Suarez is MDPL's Artist-in-Residence, anchoring a new collaboration that places a working artist directly inside the museum's gallery space. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
"I was 30 when I retired from ballet after I dislocated my right knee."
His journey as a visual artist began in Boston’s South End, where he had a studio-gallery on Concord Square and showed work in local spaces such as the Clock Café. Its owner became an avid collector of his paintings.
At one of those exhibitions, a mutual friend introduced him to Barbara Baer Capitman, the preservationist who founded the Miami Design Preservation League in 1976 and led the effort to save Miami Beach’s Art Deco district.
That meeting would change the trajectory of Suarez's career. Capitman connected with Suarez’s work and energy, promising him an exhibition at the Cardozo Hotel, which her family had purchased in 1979, and she said she'd give him a prime space during Art Deco Weekend.
His first show at the Cardozo came in 1986, followed by his Art Deco Weekend debut in January 1987. He remembers an overwhelming few days spent signing photographs and greeting a seemingly endless line of viewers.
“In those four days of Art Deco weekend, I didn’t stop… the line went around forever,” he says during an interview at MDPL’s Art Deco Museum, inside the Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive, surrounded by his paintings.
That early success, coupled with a commission from the team redeveloping the Ritz Plaza Hotel, made Suarez reconsider life in Boston and make the move to Miami Beach.
“Noel Suarez: Not a Retrospective” is on view through Dec. 31. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except designated holidays. Admission is free for Miami-Dade County residents. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
A gallery becomes a working studio
Today, Suarez is living a dream, he says, as MDPL’s artist-in-residence. The collaboration places a working artist inside the museum’s gallery, where visitors can see both finished paintings and the process behind them.
He says the residency is more than a static exhibition. It is a living studio, a place to teach and a way to connect visitors and residents with the Art Deco story.
One wall is devoted to work in progress. Suarez is finishing a large painting, originally commissioned for a client, that he plans to complete on-site and show in November. Visitors may encounter him painting when they walk in.
Posters and prints of the artist's work are for sale in the MDPL gift shop. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
His exhibition, “Not a Retrospective,” brings together work from different periods of his career. Rather than looking only backward, it shows how his practice continues to evolve and how Art Deco remains part of it.
“Noel Suarez: Not a Retrospective” is on view through Dec. 31. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except designated holidays. Admission is free for Miami-Dade County residents.
For Meg Lousteau, MDPL’s executive director, the residency extends the organization’s work preserving Miami Beach’s historic architecture.
The geometric forms, curves and motifs found in porthole windows, projecting window “eyebrows” and the vertical elements of Ocean Drive’s buildings have counterparts in Suarez’s paintings, she points out.
"For me, what's fascinating as a relative newcomer to South Florida is to see the integration – the overlaps between Art Deco architecture and the Art Deco movement in terms of visual arts and painting. I've learned so much just from talking to Noel and seeing the embodiment of Art Deco visual elements that I've obviously seen in architecture – seeing them collected in paintings and the symbiosis there. It wasn't just an architectural style. It was really an entire movement and a huge leap towards modernity," says Lousteau.
Lousteau took over as MDPL executive director in November 2025. A historic preservation advocate, she previously directed St. Louis’ Cultural Resources Office and led a neighborhood preservation organization in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
Helping people understand the design around them is central to MDPL’s educational work, she says.
For MDPL leadership, Noel Suarez's residency is a natural extension of the organization's core mission: the preservation of historic architecture in Miami Beach. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“We drink in the world with our eyes,” says Lousteau. “When you understand more about why things look the way they do, you can have a greater appreciation for your built environment.”
Keeping a preservation legacy alive
Behind Suarez’s residency is a broader story about preservation, community and Capitman’s legacy.
MDPL is preparing for its 50th anniversary in 2027, marking five decades since its incorporation. Plans include an exhibition tracing its preservation work, from Capitman’s early efforts to battles over demolition and the creation of historic districts.
For Lousteau, preservation involves more than protecting individual landmarks. It means maintaining the relationships among buildings, people and the culture that develops around them.
She describes Miami Beach as having a culture rooted in its historic surroundings, with the added distinction of sitting beside a world-famous beach.
Suarez’s presence in the gallery, painting and inviting people to draw, helps keep that culture active while carrying Capitman’s vision into the present.
“It’s as important as the actual building,” Suarez says of the movement that saved Miami Beach’s Art Deco legacy.
As part of his residency, Noel Suarez is launching a four-part drawing and painting series at the museum, designed for all experience levels—from complete beginners to practicing artists who want to solidify fundamentals. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
His paintings and classes are part of that continuing commitment to the creativity within those buildings.
Inviting locals inside
According to Lousteau, 394,000 people walked through the Art Deco Welcome Center’s doors in 2025. But MDPL wants to reach more Miami-Dade County residents.
Locals often assume the museum is primarily for tourists, she says. Admission, however, is free for Miami-Dade residents.
Among MDPL’s most popular offerings are guided walking tours of the Art Deco district, led by what Lousteau describes as “passionate, volunteer docents.” During high season, she says, the two-hour tours often run twice a day and frequently sell out.
The residency and Suarez’s classes offer another reason for locals to come inside: the opportunity to create art themselves.
Suarez brings his classical art training and dance experience to his teaching. His years as a dancer inform his understanding of anatomy, movement and structure, while his work with students has helped him develop an accessible, step-by-step approach.
He has heard every version of “I can’t draw.”
Visitors will not only see finished works but may encounter the artist actively painting when they walk in. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“Everybody’s always so afraid of the drawing,” he says. “It’s like a bad word—‘I can’t, I’m not an artist.’”
His response is to break forms, especially the human figure, into structures students can understand. Learning how those pieces fit together makes the first stroke less daunting.
As students begin to recognize what they have drawn, he says, their confidence grows. Some find they “can’t stop,” returning for additional sessions and new challenges.
The classes give participants a practical way to explore the form, movement and design they encounter in the museum and on the streets outside.
Drawing the face, figure, light and color
Suarez’s four-part drawing and painting series began Sept. 19 with a class on the human face. Three sessions remain, covering the body, light and shadow, and color.
Designed for beginners as well as practicing artists who want to strengthen their fundamentals, the series builds on the same approach he uses in the gallery: making the process understandable, one step at a time.
WHAT: “Unlock Your Inner Artist with Noel Suarez”
WHERE: Art Deco Museum, inside the Art Deco Welcome Center, 1001 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach
WHEN: Classes begin at 10 a.m. on the third Saturday of the month.
Saturday, Oct. 17 - The Body: Learn how to structure and draw the human figure.
Saturday, Nov. 21 - Dark & Light: Explore chiaroscuro and how light and shadow create depth and dimension.
Saturday, Dec. 19 - Red, Blue & Yellow: Explore color through Suarez’s pastels method.
COST: $15 per class. All art supplies are provided. Participants may register for individual sessions.
INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION: mdpl.org or 305-672-2014.
ALSO AT THE MUSEUM: Noel Suarez will present “Bridges of Style” on Thursday, Oct. 15, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Art Deco Museum, 1001 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach. The presentation explores how the flowing, nature-inspired forms of Art Nouveau evolved into the bold geometry of Art Deco. It is part of the Miami Beach Culture Crawl and the series “Tracing Art Deco Forms Across Time.”
