The St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area’s museums kick off 2006 with new exhibits sure to please aficionados of any era of art and history.

The Salvador Dalí Museum explores its namesake artist’s relationship with his American post-WWII counterparts in Pollock to Pop: America’s Brush with Dalí. The exhibit juxtaposes Dalí’s works with those by Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Chuck Close, among others, to explain their influence on each other. It runs through April 23.

The Florida International Museum’s Ink and Blood: Sacred Treasures of the Bible exhibit opens Jan. 13. It tells the complete history of the Bible, focusing on its English translations, through the display of authentic Dead Sea Scrolls fragments, ancient manuscripts, 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian pictorial clay tablets and a working replica of Gutenberg’s printing press.

Fans of turn-of-the-century interior design should visit the Leepa-Rattner Museum’s new exhibit, The American Arts and Crafts Home, 1900-1915: Selections from the Two Red Roses Foundation Collection, which begins Jan. 22. It offers the first public glimpse at the foundation’s extensive holdings of notable artisans’ works, such as Gustav Stickley furniture, Rookwood and Grueby pottery and Dirk Van Erp metalwork.

The Museum of Fine Arts celebrates photographic art with its exhibit Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50. Approximately 150 images from the 50-year history of the photographic journal Aperture, including those of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Barbara Morgan, Mary Ellen Mark, will trace the evolution of the art form. The exhibit premieres Feb. 4.

On Feb. 25, The Gulf Coast Museum of Art debuts three exhibits that home in on subjects as diverse as buildings, urban skylines and fruit. Bianca Pratorius: Filmed Edifices, Josette Urso: Landscapes/City Scenes and Richard Currier: Still Lifes will remain on view until April 23.