O What a Night! Silent Auction Opens This Saturday October 11!

O What a Night! Gala is Saturday, October 18, 2025. Here is this year’s Silent Auction, sponsored by Neal Auction.

We’re thrilled to present 80+ works by regional artists in this year’s O What a Night! Gala Silent Auction, celebrating and supporting the art of the American South. Proceeds benefit the Museum’s unique educational mission, with participating artists receiving a portion of each sale.

Silent Auction works will be on view at the Museum beginning October 11, 2025, with online bidding open October 11–19.

Preview the art, support Southern artists and place your bids online starting October 11!

For the full list of participating artists, click here.

Silent Auction Preview

Emre Karaoglu, Taking A Break, 2024, Oil on Paper, 24×18 inches, Courtesy of the artist

Emre Karaoglu, a contemporary figurative artist from Turkey now based in New Orleans, uses oil, pastel and charcoal portraits to capture the profound layers of human experience within everyday life. Karaoglu’s art practice positions him as both an observer and archivist of modern culture, bearing witness to the lives and emotions of his subjects. For Emre Karaoglu, painting the human form offers a doorway into exploring the depth and complexity of the struggles woven into daily existence. His painting was selected for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2024, at the Mall Galleries, London, UK. Three of Karaoglu’s artworks are in the permanent How You Doin’, New Orleans? and Art of the Black Experience collection of the City of New Orleans. Recent solo shows include The Rhythm of Streets at Sullivan Gallery, New Orleans, 2025, Witness, Second Story Gallery, New Orleans Healing Center, 2024, and Faces Around Us, 2023, Sullivan Gallery, New Orleans. He belongs to the artist collective, “Contemporary Figurative Artist, New Orleans” and “Second Story Gallery,” in New Orleans.

Lily LaGrange, Framed Spell, 2023, Archival inkjet print, 22 x 28 inches, Courtesy of the artist

Lily LaGrange is an artist working across photography, installation and sculpture. She holds an MFA in Photography from Syracuse University (2024) and a BA in Economics from Louisiana State University (2018). LaGrange’s work draws on traditions of performance, illusion and institutional display to explore the aesthetics of access: who is allowed to appear, under what conditions and through which mechanisms of control. She was featured in Louisiana Contemporary at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2025 and 2024. 

Carlos Gamez de Francisco, Flowers Pointing to the Sky, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 12 inches in diameter, Courtesy of the artist and Claire Elizabeth Gallery

Cuban artist Carlos Gamez de Francisco is based in Florida. He grew up in post-revolutionary Cuba and was educated in an academic style highly influenced by the Russian Academy. At the age of five, he determined that he would be an artist. By the time he was fifteen, Gamez de Francisco was diligently painting 8 hours a day. After immigrating to the United States and teaching himself English, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Gamez de Francisco’s classical training integrates portraiture and history – when garments were exquisite and surroundings manated status. But he felt that “everybody has the right to be in he portrait” and embarked on a series where everyday people were featured. His goal with his portraits is to show subjects with strength, confidence and elegance.

William Dunlap, Out of Building, 2021, Oil and dry pigment over ink, 17 x 21.5 inches, Courtesy of the artist and SPILLMAN | BLACKWELL Art Advisory

William Dunlap has distinguished himself as an artist, arts commentator and educator, during a career that has spanned more than three decades. His paintings, sculptures and constructions are included in prestigious collections, such as the Metropolitan Museumof Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Lauren Rogers Museum, Mobil Corporation, Riggs Bank, IBM Corporation, Federal Express, The Equitable Collection, Rogers Ogden Collection, Arkansas Art Center, the United States State Department and United States Embassies throughout the world.

Claire E. Thriffiley Nest of Color #3, 2022, Mixed media on paper, Courtesy of the artist and Claire Elizabeth Gallery