Ogden Museum of Southern Art
925 Camp St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.539.9650 | HOURS
925 Camp St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.539.9650 | HOURS
Photo Courtesy of Ashley Lorraine and Ogden Museum of Southern Art
(New Orleans, LA) – On Saturday, October 18, Ogden Museum of Southern Art will host its annual O What a Night! Gala. A black-tie affair, the glamorous evening honors internationally acclaimed, New Orleans-based multimedia artist Dawn DeDeaux and Louisiana arts advocate and philanthropist Randy K. Haynie with the prestigious Opus Award. The O What a Night! Gala will feature a seated dinner, live music and both live and silent art auctions. With the Museum’s recent acquisitions of the historic Patrick F. Taylor Library and Stephen Goldring Hall, which house the Museum’s permanent collection, rotating exhibitions and educational programs, this year will truly be a memorable celebration.
Festivities will begin with a Patron Party on Thursday, October 16, 2025, hosted at the Uptown home of gala co-chair Kaye Courington. The Patron Party will offer supporters an exclusive first look at live auction items, as well as an intimate evening of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Courington is joined in her co-chair duties by Fern Watters, whose leadership will help ensure a memorable and impactful celebration.
2025 Co-chair Kaye Courington shares, “I’m honored to co-chair Ogden’s O What a Night! Gala with Fern Watters, celebrating Opus Award recipients Dawn DeDeaux and Randy K. Haynie, and the art of the American South. I’m thrilled to support the Museum and also look forward to hosting the Patron Party, presenting the fabulous works of art from the Live Auction, for an up-close preview at my home.”
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.
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 2025 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 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 menu from Palate Executive Chef Glenn Vatshell and music by acclaimed American jazz trumpeter and singer Jeremy Davenport and his band. This year’s live auction will feature exclusive, major works from Southern artists such as Michael J. Deas, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Gregory B. Saunders, Kaori Maeyama and Kenny Nguyen. The celebration continues into the evening with live entertainment provided by local soul cover band The Essentials.
The silent auction, presented by Neal Auction, will be available online and open for bidding starting on October 11, and will close on October 19. This year’s silent auction features over eighty works of art and includes artists like John Isiah Walton, William Dunlap, Sharon Kopriva, David Rae Morris and Ruth Owens. Artwork in the silent auction will be on view at the Museum for visitors to see and bid on starting October 11.
O What a Night! Gala 2025 co-chairs are Kaye Courington and Fern Watters, and the event is made possible with generous support from Beverly Dale, Thibodaux Regional Health System, Entergy Louisiana & Entergy New Orleans, The Jenkins Family, Ochsner Health, FirstDay Foundation, Neal Auction, Michael Mimeles, Wendy Rodrigue & Doug Magnus, LCMC Health, ELEMENT, The Helis Foundation, Premium Parking, SAZERAC / Goldring Family Foundation, St. Charles Avenue and The Times-Picayune | nola.com, among others.
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 Dawn DeDeaux
Dawn DeDeaux is an internationally acclaimed, New Orleans-based multi-media artist whose interdisciplinary practice draws upon art history, philosophy, anthropology, literature and science to comment upon the human condition and the future of our planet. Over the course of a career which spans five decades, her work has been shown in some of the world’s leading museums, including Whitney Museum of American Art, Mass MoCA, Hammer Museum, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, New Orleans Museum of Art and Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Locally, her work has been featured in Prospect New Orleans and Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition. Her list of honors is lengthy, and includes the American Academy in Rome’s prestigious Prix de Rome. She continues to push her studio practice and nurture important dialogues from her New Orleans studio, Camp Abundance.
About Randy K. Haynie
Randy K. Haynie is the owner and president of Haynie & Associates, a government relations firm established in 1980 with offices in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana. In addition to representing business and industry nationwide, Haynie has committed to public service through civic and professional organizations including the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Hilliard Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Foundation Board of Directors, the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion Preservation Foundation, and the Arts and Culture Fund of the Community Foundation of Acadiana. Haynie has been integral to the establishment of Ogden Museum of Southern Art, serving as an inaugural board member and fundraising advocate. Most recently, Haynie helped Ogden Museum acquire two significant buildings: Patrick F. Taylor Library and Stephen Goldring Hall. Haynie has received lifetime achievement and supporter awards from the Louisiana Partnership for the Arts, the Acadian Center for the Arts, and the Louisiana Association of Museums, among others.
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.