Ogden Museum of Southern Art
925 Camp St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.539.9600 | HOURS
925 Camp St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.539.9600 | HOURS
Clementine Hunter, Chaleur: The Sun Gives Life To Everything, 1962, Oil on canvas board, 21.75 x 25.5 inches, Gift of the Roger Houston Ogden Collection, 2003.1.258
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Dream is the Truth showcases a unique survey of artists whose practices fall within and across the categories of Vernacular Art, which broadly includes self-taught and Visionary Art, all drawn from Ogden Museum of Southern Art Collection. The potent works included in this exhibition, primarily paintings, drawings and bricolage sculptures, were created within a grassroots Southern tradition of artmaking beyond academic or conventional art institutions. These artists deeply engage recurring themes of spirituality, memory, sense of place and community, often transforming found or repurposed materials. Through strikingly original expression and a strong sense of artistic purpose, these works remain grounded in the history and psyche of the 20th-century American South.
As Zora Neale Hurston writes in Their Eyes Were Watching God, for women, “The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly,” a line that resonates with the sense of agency through which these women fashioned their creative lives and voiced their own interior vision and spiritual imagination. These varied artists shaped their singular practices outside institutional validation, pushing beyond the racial and gendered boundaries of their time and producing vital and nuanced legacies of work. The Dream is the Truth is a celebration of their artistic contributions within the realm of Vernacular Art and the larger American art canon.
Artists include, but are not limited to, Minnie Evans, Elayne Goodman, Theora Hamblett, Bessie Harvey, Clementine Hunter, Sudie Johnson, Zelle Manning, Betty Sue Matthews, Sister Gertrude Morgan and Nellie Mae Rowe.
Ogden Museum of Southern Art is dedicated to presenting and preserving the art of the American South. Exhibitions like this are made possible through the generosity of supporters.