You can now view John Clemmer’s Swamp Fire at The Historic New Orleans Collection! Ogden Museum loaned this piece to The Historic New Orleans Collection for their exhibition John Clemmer: A Legacy in Art, on view through November 7, 2021.

John Clemmer, Swamp Fire, 1947, Watercolor and gouache on paper, Collection of Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Gift of Allison Kendrick 2014.19.1 

The Historic New Orleans Collection opened John Clemmer: A Legacy in Art on the centennial of Clemmer’s birthday, July 22. In total, there are 62 works of art by Clemmer featured in this exhibition.

Clemmer was a major figure of the arts in New Orleans. His seventy year career inspired many of his contemporaries. Aside from his dedicated studio practice, Clemmer made major contributions to academics. Clemmer studied at the Arts and Crafts Club’s School of Art, became an instructor for the school and later moved on to teach at Tulane’s School of Art’s Architecture program. 

Over the course of Clemmer’s lengthy career, his style evolved with the changing tides of modernism. Landscapes were a major subject matter in Clemmer’s work, even when he explored Cubist methods and mixed media abstraction. He also employed a wide variety of media, such as watercolor, oil paint, and even Masonite.

Alongside the John Clemmer: A Legacy in Art exhibition is a collection of artworks by 76 different artists who Clemmer knew throughout his career. These artists were associated with the institutions Clemmer worked with and many more within New Orleans.