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While Mardi Gras might look a little different this year, we can still pay homage to our beloved carnival traditions. In this post, to honor the great city of New Orleans and our community’s love for Mardi Gras, we would like to highlight some works from our permanent collection that represent the festivities of the…
Read More about Visual Tales of Carnival Season Works from Ogden Museum's Permanent Collection
Thornton Dial was born in 1928 – during the time of segregation – on a cotton plantation in Emelle, Alabama. He was one of 12 children, and he grew up without a father. At the age of 10, he moved to Bessemer, Alabama³. Starting at a young age, Dial began working, and the little time…
Ida Rittenberg Kohlmeyer, the daughter of Polish immigrants, Rebecca and Joseph Rittenberg, was born in New Orleans in 1912. The Rittenberg family owned a pawn shop and lived off of St. Charles Avenue. Kohlmeyer was the youngest of four children. She had two older brothers, Leon and Phillip, who both tragically died as young men, and…
Read More about September Collection Highlight Ida Kohlmeyer
Born in the State of Zacatecas, Mexico in 1901, Enrique Alférez’s life spanned almost the entirety of the 20th century. Alférez settled in New Orleans in 1929, and in 1952 at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, he met his wife, Peggy Selway, a nurse from Harrisburg, PA. The couple split their time between Mexico and New Orleans. In Peggy, Enrique found an intellectual…
Read More about New to Ogden Museum: La Vietnamita - Mother in Flight by Enrique Alférez
This month’s Ogden Museum permanent collection artist highlight focuses on New Orleans artist, John T. Scott, recently featured in the Museum’s exhibition, What Music is Within: Black Abstraction from the Permanent Collection. Artist Background John T. Scott, born in 1940 in New Orleans, may be the city’s most prolific sculptor. Scott was raised in the…
On Saturday, July 18, the world lost a major voice in contemporary art, Keith Sonnier. Born in 1941, Sonnier grew up in the rice fields and Cajun culture of Mamou, Louisiana. After graduating from University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette in 1963, he went on to earn an M.F.A. from Rutgers University in 1966. In New…
What Music is Within artist, John Barnes, and Bradley Sumrall, Curator of the Collection, discuss Mr. Barnes’ studio practice, career and inspiration. ABOUT JOHN BARNES John Barnes is a sculptor who mainly deals in wood assemblages. Barnes first took an interest in art when he enrolled in the Baton Rouge public school system, but his…
Read More about Curated Conversation with "What Music is Within" Artist, John Barnes
The spirit that lies in the work of Michael Meads is whimsical yet foreboding. His graphite drawings, like the-larger-than-life “Der Liebestod’ or “Ghosts Along the Levee,” are a gluttony of New Orleans mayhem – you get lost in the detailed magistery of his scenes depicting debauchery, tragedy and chaos. His early works consisted of photographic…
This month’s Ogden Museum permanent collection artist highlight focuses on Lonnie Holley. Lonnie Holley is a self-taught Black artist from the American South known for his vernacular and contemporary art and his music. Lonnie Holley was born during the Jim Crow era on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. He was one of many…