Photo Courtesy of Ashley Lorraine and Ogden Museum of Southern Art
(New Orleans, LA) – On Saturday, October 19, Ogden Museum of Southern Art will host its annual O What a Night! Gala. A black-tie affair, the glamorous evening will honor philanthropist Betsy Nalty, attorney Lloyd N. “Sonny” Shields and artist James Surls with the Opus Award, a prestigious award given annually at the gala. The O What a Night! Gala will feature a seated dinner, live music and both live and silent art auctions. A Patron Party offering a first glance at live auction items will take place on Thursday, October 17, and will be hosted by Fern and Kevin Watters at their Garden District home. Co-chairs for this year’s gala include Deanna Rodriguez, Fern Watters and Sharonda Williams.
Ogden Museum’s Opus Award is presented to individuals who continue to make significant contributions to the vibrant and complex fabric that is the genre of American Southern art.
2024 Co-chair Fern Watters states, “I am thrilled to chair the Museum’s O What a Night! Gala honoring Betsy Nalty, Sonny Shields and artist James Surls. This event is a wonderful opportunity to support the Southern art community and Ogden Museum of Southern Art. I am looking forward to celebrating these talented individuals and their tremendous contributions to the art world. It is sure to be an entertaining occasion.”
In addition to the presentation of the Opus Awards, the evening will showcase silent and live art auctions, featuring both emerging and established regional artists. The gala is not only an experiential celebration of the very best in Southern art, music and food, but is also the Museum’s top fundraising event. Contributions to the 2024 O What a Night! Gala will provide critical funds for the Museum’s award-winning educational programs and for dynamic exhibitions of art of and about the American South.
O What a Night! Gala begins at 6 p.m. with a cocktail hour held in the Museum’s historic Patrick F. Taylor library, where guests will be able to view and bid on the works of art in the silent auction, presented by Neal Auction, and enjoy passed hors d’oeuvres from boutique New Orleans caterer, Palate New Orleans. Following the cocktail hour, gala attendees will enjoy a seated dinner featuring a crafted menu from Palate’s executive chef, Glenn Vatshell, luscious dessert created by pastry chef Beth Biundo and music by acclaimed American jazz trumpeter and singer Jeremy Davenport and his band. This year’s live auction will be presided over by international auctioneer, CK Swett. The auction will feature exclusive, major works from Southern artists such as Ben Depp, Alex Beard, Kaori Maeyama, Keith Duncan and Anastasia Pelias. The celebration continues into the evening with live entertainment provided by the powerful funk fusion band, Water Seed.
The silent auction, presented by Neal Auction, will be available online and open for bidding starting on October 12, and will close on October 20. This year’s silent auction features over seventy works of art and includes artists like Horton Humble, David Rae Morris, Jessica Strahan, John Isiah Walton and Virginia Candler. Artwork in the silent auction will be on view at the Museum for visitors to see and bid on starting October 12.
O What a Night! Gala 2024 co-chairs include Deanna Rodriguez, Fern Watters and Sharonda Williams, and the event is made possible with generous support from ELEMENT, Entergy, The Helis Foundation, Premium Parkin, Neal Auction, SAZERAC / Goldring Family Foundation, St. Charles Avenue and The Times-Picayune | nola.com.
For a full list of auction artists names, and to purchase tickets to O What a Night! Gala, visit www.ogdenmuseum.org. For questions about the gala, please contact Capri Guarisco, Marketing and Communications Manager, at cguarisco@ogdenmuseum.org or 504.539.8170.
About Betsy Nalty
Betsy Nalty is an accomplished New Orleans philanthropist who has served her community since 1970. In a 2012 article in “St. Charles Avenue Magazine,” Ms. Nalty states she was inspired by her parents and her late husband to “lead a life of volunteerism and community activism.”
After receiving an education at the Louise S. McGehee School in 1960, Ms. Nalty would later return to become the honorary centennial chair of the school’s 100th anniversary celebration. She is now a lifetime member of the school’s board of directors, a role that she balances with her many other civic commitments.
About Lloyd N. “Sonny” Shields
Serving as an Ogden Museum of Southern Art Trustee since 2007, Sonny Shields has more than 43 years of experience in construction industry litigation and contracts; construction law; surety law (primarily construction contract bonds); insurance defense (including CGL, first party property, and architects’ and engineers’ errors and omissions coverage); products liability; zoning and planning law practice, including administrative hearings; patent, trademark and copyright litigation; and general litigation, including appeals.
For more than 30 years Shields was an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School on the subject of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure and has taught for nearly 30 years at Tulane Law School on the subject of Historic Preservation Law. Shields has delivered more than 200 papers and presents on numerous aspects of construction and surety law, and lectures on those subjects as well as on negotiation and mediation skills and practices.
About James Surls
James Surls is an internationally recognized artist and one of the most preeminent living artists in the United States. He graduated from Sam Houston State Teachers College in 1966 and from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1968. He taught at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas from 1968 to 1976. He then moved to Splendora, Texas with his wife and artist-Charmaine Locke. He lived in Splendora for a little over 20 years. While there he founded the Lawndale Alternative Arts Space at the University of Houston in the late 70’s. Lawndale was a thriving artist community where he continued to teach and encourage artists, while also producing a large body of work. Surls currently resides and has his studio in Carbondale, Colorado, where he has lived since 1997.
Surls’ sculptures, drawings and prints (which reflect his unique sensibility to natural forms) are in major art museums and public and private collections throughout the world, including: the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; The country of Singapore; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian American Art Museum, District of Columbia; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans.
About Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Located in the vibrant Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana since 1999 and open to the public since 2003, Ogden Museum of Southern Art invites visitors to experience and learn about the artists and culture of the American South. Ogden Museum is home to a collection of more than four thousand works, making it the largest and most comprehensive repository dedicated to Southern art in the nation, with particular strength in the genres of Self-Taught art, Regionalism, photography and contemporary art. The Museum is further recognized for its original exhibitions, public events and educational programs, which examine the development of visual art alongside Southern traditions of music, literature and local craft.
Ogden Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission is free to Museum Members and admission for Non-Members is $15.00 for adults, $12.00 for seniors 65 and older, $7.00 for children ages 5-17 and free for children under 5. Prices are subject to change when exhibitions are being rotated. Admission is free to Louisiana residents on Thursdays, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
The Museum is located at 925 Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130. For more
information visit ogdenmuseum.org or call 504.539.9650.