Arsenault Gallery

Arsenault Gallery, also known as Banyan Arts Gallery, showcases the work of painter Paul Arsenault, who began his professional painting career in 1974 after previously working as a deckhand, according to the gallery’s own account of his background. The gallery operates from a historic compound on Third Street South in downtown Naples, described on the gallery’s site as featuring vintage cottages nestled beneath a large banyan tree, with the surrounding property carrying what the gallery describes as nearly a century of history tied to the artists, writers, and musicians who have stayed there over the decades.

Arsenault’s paintings are organized by geographic region on the gallery’s site, spanning subjects in Naples itself alongside destinations including Nantucket, California, the Caribbean, and Europe and Asia, reflecting an artist who has painted extensively while traveling rather than confining his subject matter strictly to Southwest Florida. The gallery sells paintings alongside books and calendars built around these regional collections, giving visitors multiple price points and formats for taking home Arsenault’s work beyond an original painting alone.

Since 1983, the gallery has organized annual fundraising shows that benefit a range of nonprofit organizations, a tradition that has continued for more than four decades and that ties the gallery’s commercial operation to a broader pattern of community philanthropy in Naples. That combination, a working artist’s gallery built around decades of travel painting plus a long running charitable exhibition tradition, gives Arsenault Gallery a distinct identity within Naples’ gallery scene compared to galleries built primarily around representing multiple outside artists.

The gallery’s Third Street South address places it within the same downtown pocket as several other Naples galleries and a short walk from Naples Bay, in an area known for its historic residential character alongside its retail and dining offerings. Because the gallery operates out of what is described as a historic residential-style compound rather than a standard storefront, its layout and atmosphere likely differ from the more conventional gallery spaces found along Fifth Avenue South a few blocks north, offering visitors a somewhat more intimate or unconventional gallery-going experience.

Specific hours were not published in detail through the gallery’s public materials found during this research, and the gallery’s phone number was listed with a possible transcription issue in at least one directory source, so visitors are encouraged to confirm both hours and the current phone number directly before making a special trip. Given Paul Arsenault’s five decades of painting and the gallery’s four decades of charitable exhibition work, Arsenault Gallery represents one of the more historically layered stops among Naples’ Third Street South and Fifth Avenue South area galleries, combining a working artist’s personal body of work with an ongoing community fundraising tradition.