As he walks across the 66-acre campus of The Ringling to show a visitor a building restoration nearing completion, Executive Director Steven High smiles as he points out some of the projects, additions and renovations he oversaw during his 15 years of leadership.

High, who wasn’t looking for a job when he came to The Ringling in 2011 from the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Ga., announced in June that he would retire in October (or whenever his successor is ready to start work).

A secret stealth visit to explore the museum on his own after he was contacted by a search firm led to an impactful tenure that he and others said have transformed the museum and raised its standing in the art world. The official state art museum and the largest museum south of North Carolina, is part of Florida State University.

Among his campus highlights are the distinctive green-tiled Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Art; the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion adjacent to the visitor center; the Turrell Skyspace Joseph’s Coat, which he cites as one of his favorite spots; and major renovations to the historic circus gallery and preservation of the historic Ringling mansion Ca’ d’Zan before and after destructive hurricanes.

High “strengthened The Ringling’s role as both a world-class museum and an important part of Florida State University’s academic mission,” said Jim Clark, FSU’s Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, in a statement. “He expanded opportunities for student learning, research and community engagement while helping preserve and enhance one of Florida’s great cultural institutions.”

High, who recently turned 70, said it was time “to let somebody else take a run at it. Personally, you can’t keep maintaining this. You need to step back. It’s time to do something new.”

And whatever that is will happen from someplace new. He and his wife, Lisa, are trying to decide where they will move once his job ends. They have sons living in Atlanta and Brooklyn, but they’re considering a move to Philadelphia.

“I’ve never stayed where I was working. I’ve gone across the country or at least north to south. I think that’s a good thing. I need to get out of the way for the new group coming in, but I will definitely come back and visit,” he said.

Even as he is thinking about what’s next, High remains excited about various projects happening around the grounds, especially the restoration of the 1961 Rupp Pavilion, a long-closed former cafe that offered burgers, sandwiches and hot dogs. It was designed by the late Sarasota architect William Rupp. When it’s completed – hopefully before he leaves the job – the midcentury modern building will boast a vastly different menu – art exhibitions.

“The first one is on Rupp himself. We will be showing midcentury modern collections that we have on the property and also changing it periodically. The exhibitions should be relevant to that,” he said.

The building is steps away from the entry doors to the historic circus galleries, which underwent a significant renovation during his tenure.

The Ringling’s circus heritage

Over the years, his predecessors have had different attitudes about The Ringling’s ties to the circus.

John and Mable Ringling moved into their home, Ca’ d’Zan (or House of John), in 1926 when the Ringling brothers moved the winter quarters of their circus business to Sarasota. During boom and bust years, John Ringling amassed a large collection of art totaling more than 600 works which he housed in the museum building that he left to the state of Florida on his death in 1936.

The museum’s first director, Everett “Chick” Austin, highlighted the art, but also made significant investments to showcase theater (by importing an old theater building from Asolo, Italy) and the circus. 

Since then, some museum leaders have downplayed the museum’s connection to the circus heritage, which helped pay for the complex. High did the opposite.

“I love the circus. It’s been a great joy,” High said. “Before I came here, I had been to the circus once when I was 10 or 11 in a small town in Idaho. It was a Shriner’s circus with the hats and everything.”

It wasn’t until he was working in Savannah that he finally saw a Ringling Bros. circus show.

“It was kind of a surprise but I just really fell in love with it, and I love what we have here and all the people and what they have done,” he said.

He has always been impressed with the work that Howard Tibbals and his wife, Janice, put into what is now the Tibbals Learning Center. They helped fund the building to house the world’s largest miniature circus model, a 38,000-square-foot display of life on an old-fashioned big top traveling circus show from arrival by train to set up, performance and tear down. The couple spent more than 50 years creating the model, and Howard Tibbals continued crafting pieces from a workshop in the building until shortly before his death in 2022. The building includes other circus materials and the archives and research center as well.

Its popularity spurred improvements to The Ringling’s historic circus museum, which has housed circus wagons, a tiny car used by the legendary clown Lou Jacobs and John and Mable’s train car, The Wisconsin.

“The historic circus museum was not in very good shape when we got here. It is now much more doable,” High said.

In 2024, Feld Entertainment, which owns the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, helped the museum open the Greatest Show on Earth gallery, highlighting some of the company’s and general circus history.

Fundraising success

During his tenure High is credited with building the museum’s annual budget from $12 million to $28 million and its endowment from $27 to $67 million. In 2012, he launched a multi-year $100 million comprehensive capital campaign that was completed in 2019, helping to fund renovations to Ca’ d’Zan. More work has been done on the mansion since hurricanes flooded the building two years ago. A planned $2 million renovation turned out to cost $12 million, he said.

He credits the museum’s positive relationship with FSU with helping to achieve the renovations, restorations and new projects. “They have helped to make things happen.”

That relationship was potentially threatened when a proposal was introduced in the state legislature in 2025 to transfer ownership of the museum campus and the FSU Center for the Performing Arts (home to Asolo Repertory Theatre and The Sarasota Ballet) to New College of Florida. The proposal, which generated a lot of opposition in the Sarasota area, was not included in the 2025 state budget but could possibly be raised again. Earlier this year, the legislature did fund New College’s takeover of the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus, just to its north.

High also is hopeful that another project will be completed before his departure – the reinstallation of the Aeolian Duo-Art pipe organ that was a major attraction in the mansion. The museum received a $1.5 million grant from the Wyncote Foundation to fully restore the instrument at Parsons Pipe Organ Builders in New York.

“It’s coming. It’s almost there,” he said. “It was taken fully apart. They cleaned every element and they’re going to put it all back together here.”

A sense of wonder

During his initial visit to The Ringling, High said he was impressed with what he saw, and part of what sold him was the Historic Asolo Theater inside the Ringling Visitors Center.

“Walking through the visitors pavilion and stepping out and looking out across this campus, it’s really hard to not be overwhelmed. We talk a lot about wonder, and it was the biggest wonder event I ever experienced,” he said. “And then, once that hits you, you start looking around at all the different things going on.”

He said the Historic Asolo “was a driving factor because I always wanted a theater at all my other museums. I never had a major theater space and I was really excited about that.”

The Historic Asolo Theater is a rebuilt version of a 1798 performance space that was brought from Asolo, Italy, purchased by Austin in 1949 and then reassembled on The Ringling grounds about where the Searing Wing exhibition space is now located on the northwest side of the museum.

The theater was the birthplace of both the Asolo Repertory Theatre and the Sarasota Opera. When the Asolo company moved to the new FSU center in 1990, the interior decorative touches were removed and stored while the building was demolished. They were reassembled in what is now known as the Historic Asolo Theater, which opened in 2006.

It became home to some of the performances of the Ringling International Arts Festival, initially a collaboration with the Baryshnikov Arts Center, which started the year before High was hired. The festival, which brought in an eclectic array of international dance, music, theater and performance art acts, ran until 2017 when High pushed for more year-round programming.

That led to the 2018-19 launch of what is now known as the Art of Performance series, which will begin a new season Oct. 16 with the Ringling Night of Wonder party in the museum courtyard.in October.

Finding a successor

FSU and the Ringling Museum of Art Foundation have hired the national search firm Isaacson, Miller, to find the next executive director.

High won’t be involved in the search. “It would not be appropriate,” he said. “It’s good for me to stand away. We have a really good company that is handling the search, one of the top in the country. Our board is very engaged. It will be a good search.”

One of the big attractions of The Ringling is the campus itself, he said. “There is so much ground that we could work on and build on. It really gives you the opportunity to grow and we’re still doing that.”

This year, the museum attracted 406,000 visitors, the highest number since before the COVID pandemic when it 435,000 people spent time there.

“The thing about this museum is that people may come for one thing but there is so much to see, that they end up wandering everywhere,” he said.

He’s still waiting for approval from FSU to make repairs to the bayfront side of the campus, replanting palms destroyed by the storms, restoring lighting on the walkway and the staircase to the lower level of the Ca’ d’Zan terrace.

“Someone at FSU has to flip the switch. That’s what I’m working on now.”

Adding to the collection

For much of his tenure, the museum has done very little borrowing of works or exhibitions from other museums. “Mostly what we do are exhibits we develop in house, exhibitions we put together.” One touring show coming up is an exception, an exhibit of art work from Puerto Rico. “That one is really special and fits within our European collection.”

That European collection, including giant tapestries by Peter Paul Rubens, was long the museum’s calling card. But what attracts people to The Ringling depends on who has visited and who hasn’t.

Some people who don’t know much about The Ringling, think it’s all about the circus. “We spend a lot of energy trying to show all the other things we have,” he said. “But for anyone who has actually come, it’s a totally different experience. They understand that European collection is very strong. It’s been dismissed from the beginning when John Ringling put it in there. But there are really great works in the collection.”

Under High’s leadership, the museum has added 17,147 works to the collection through gifts and purchases. In the previous 50 years, 8,473 pieces were added.

Asked what advice he’d pass on to his successor, High said. “Have fun. That’s always the first thing. We really have a great staff. I would really encourage them to spend time with them. It’s so easy to have all these ideas you just want to roll with it, but it takes a bit of time to really get to know the operations and the people. That sets off a good relationship for a director.”

A director has to be proficient in so many things, he said, from understanding art, and in the Ringling’s case, the circus, to being able to talk to people, raise money and work with the university.

“But it’s also important to not hang out in your office, to be out on the grounds. I am walking the grounds almost every day, seeing what people are doing, what they’re involved with and just enjoying seeing them. It’s really a pleasure to be out there, to enjoy and appreciate how lucky you are to steward this.”