arts quarterly summer 2015

Summer 2015Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art

Susan M. Taylor

DIRECTOR’S LETTER

It may be summer, but we’ve been making the most of it at NOMA, working on dramatic improvements that will enhance the visitor experience for a wide range of audiences. If you’ve visited the galleries recently, you may have noticed some major changes on the third floor as we begin to reimagine the installation of the permanent collection. New spaces have been created to enhance the presentation and interpretation of our Mesoamerican holdings: important Mexican, Maya, and Central American works of art. We are also restoring the windows located at either end of the third floor wings to allow for spectacular views of City Park and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. The new gallery spaces will be completed by the end of summer, and renovation of the second floor Norvin and Sue Pellerin Lobby is planned for the future. These changes will optimize the presentation of the collection and improve the quality of the interpretive experience. We look forward sharing this new installation with you. Internally, the curatorial department is changing as well. I am pleased to announce that Katie Pfohl has accepted the position of curator of modern and contemporary art here at NOMA. She began her work this summer, and is already planning a full schedule of projects and new exhibitions. Most recently at the LSU Museum of Art, Katie also comes with experience at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her scholarly and curatorial projects make her well suited to steward NOMA’s modern and contemporary art program. NOMA’s curatorial program was also recently recognized with a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This funding, bestowed to support the reinstallation and presentation of the museum’s collection of Spanish Colonial paintings, is a monumental step in making the collection widely accessible. This significant collection, featured in part in last summer’s Behind Closed Doors exhibition, will finally be back on view in NOMA’s galleries thanks to the support of the NEA. With numerous programs and events on the horizon, NOMA is a place for the entire family to visit and learn together this summer. A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context celebrates the recent acquisition of a complete Victorian parlor that has remained intact through six generations of women. This exhibition offers an opportunity for visitors of all ages and backgrounds to learn about the parlor’s historical context through the lens of the decorative arts. In the previous issue of Arts Quarterly we mentioned Ten Years Gone, the exhibition that coincides with the anniversary of a cataclysmic event in New Orleans’s history: Hurricane Katrina. We join the city’s cultural community in commemorating the past and remembering the lives lost through this exhibition. Ten Years Gone will be on view through Labor Day; I hope you will experience it. This summer also marks the return of New Orleans Museum Month in August. Spearheaded by NOMA last year, this program offers reciprocal membership privileges at fifteen museums across the Greater New Orleans Area during the month of August. It’s an excellent opportunity to explore the city and its museums. Finally, our annual fall fundraiser LOVE in the Garden returns in September. A favorite event of many, this night promises dining and celebrating under the stars in the verdant Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. I encourage you to join us in experiencing the beautiful garden at night, while supporting the museum and its programs and initiatives. We look forward to welcoming you to NOMA this summer!

Susan M. TaylorThe Montine McDaniel Freeman Director

COVER:A Louisiana Parlor installation at NOMA

Photo by Roman Alokhin

INSIDE COVER: Bidou Yamaguchi, Mona Lisa, 2003, Japanese cypress, seashell, natural pigment, lacquer, 8.27 x 5.31 x 2.76 in. Collection of Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and Steve McLeod

EDITOR’S NOTE

The image used on the spring 2015 issue of Arts Quarterly was mistakenly not credited:

Water Markers, 2006-2010; Dawn DeDeaux, American, b. 1952; Polished acrylic slabs with embedded digital images; Courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery

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FEATURE

10 A Louisiana Parlor Victorian furnishings with stories to tell

MUSEUM

INSPIREDBYNOMA

4 Christopher Saucedo

EXHIBITIONS

5 Fall preview: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi

COLLECTIONS

6 Pardon Our Progress

6 Promised Gifts: Old Paris Porcelain

7 Introducing Katie Pfohl, NOMA’s Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

8 Behind the Scenes with NOMA’s Digitization Team

Page 10 A LOUISIANA PARLOR:

ANTEBELLUM TASTE & CONTEXT

Page 5 FALL PREVIEW: THE NOH MASKS OF BIDOU YAMAGUCHI

CONTENTS Summer 2015

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COMMUNITY

LEARN

14 Summer Campers Learn and Play

VISIT

15 Summer Programs

SUPPORT

16 NOMA Donors

16 NOMA Circles Get Insider Access to Modernist Home

18 Spring Celebrations

20 NOMA Celebrates its Volunteers

20 In Memoriam: Tim Favrot

21 National Endowment of the Arts Grant Supports NOMA’s Spanish Colonial Art Collection

22 Odyssey 2015 Continues with a Sponsor Party Performance by Monica Mancini

23 Isaac Delgado Society Profile: Wayne Amedee

23 Save the Date for LOVE in the Garden

Page 22 ODYSSEY 2015 SPONSOR PARTYPage 14 SUMMER CAMPERS LEARN AND PLAY

Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art

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I NS PI R E D B Y NOM A : C H R IST OP H E R S AUC E D O

but it really doesn’t matter what they see as long as they’re genuinely drawn to it. Having them argue on the way back to campus about a Modigliani and Dubuffet tells me they now have some sense of ownership of their museum and that they will return.

The museum recently acquired a wonderful sixth-century Chinese sandstone Buddha. There is a freshness to the carving I enjoy, and a humble magic is in its honest and occasional awkwardness of form. To me, it looks like a mortal sculptor did his best and saw the carving through, imperfections and all. This is not a criticism, but is intended as the opposite — this ancient stone still seems to breathe. Maybe it’s the way sandstone absorbs light and lacks a polished skin. Maybe it’s the modest scale. But I feel I can truly enter the work and imagine myself as the carver.

What would you tell someone who is intimidated by the art experience, and maybe hasn’t been to NOMA or an art museum before?It’s the same old problem. I’m answering questions for readers who are already your loyal audience. This is the preacher singing to the choir. It needs to start in elementary school with frequent yellow school bus field trips. We need to regularly expose grade school kids to our cultural accomplishments and hope it sticks.

How do we expand the conversation to include those who are intimidated by the art experience? For a short while after Katrina, New Orleans had the world’s attention. Dan Cameron did a spectacular job organizing the arts biennial Prospect.1, a truly citywide art event. I feel the museum has been a larger part of the entire city’s cultural identity since, and it is programming like this that yields community inclusion. There is certainly no shortage of cultural production in our city and also no shortage of interest; it all just needs mindful curation, which in my estimation has always been the museum’s purpose. New Orleans’s cultural future is healthy with NOMA taking a leadership role.

What was your reaction when you were invited to participate in an exhibition coinciding with the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina?I was pleased. Although I wasn’t born in New Orleans, I sincerely feel I was reborn in the flood. Like so many, our one-story Gentilly home and my adjacent studio were comprehensively flooded. I spent four and a half years in my FEMA trailer while salvaging, rebuilding, and elevating our home.

That said, Ten Years Gone is not overtly a “Katrina show” and my included artwork refers to a distinct American catastrophe that took place four years prior. The media already owns too much of the Katrina story—they certainly own the literal televised images of the flood. Literal is the operative term and this exhibition could not be such. Poetry was in order. I keep thinking about denotation and connotation, and I feel that the strength of Russell Lord’s show is in the latter. That might not be the easy-to-swallow, quick-fix viewers expect, but I’d argue that it’s this long-view that has always aesthetically sustained us.

Christopher Saucedo received his BFA from New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1986, and his MFA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1988. Saucedo retired as Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of New Orleans where he ran the sculpture program for twenty years. Currently he is a member of the faculty at Adelphi University in New York where he continues to teach sculpture. He lives and works in both Rockaway Beach, New York and the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. Saucedo has exhibited his artwork in over one hundred exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. His Floating World Trade Center works can be found in the exhibition Ten Years Gone, on view in the second floor Templeman Galleries.

Do you have a favorite NOMA memory? Is there a particular artist, object, or exhibition at NOMA that you’ve admired or been inspired by?I’ve been teaching art appreciation classes for non-art students for 25 years. A recurring and empowering moment happens each semester during my required museum field trip. Tiny textbook pictures and classroom projections pale in comparison to an in-person art experience. Watching the students get their noses a few inches from the canvas remains a delight. I send them on a museum treasure hunt,

Installation of Christopher Saucedo’s Floating World Trade Center works at NOMA. Photo by Roman Alokhin

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COLLECTIONS

The human face and its expressive potential have inspired artists for millennia. For over six centuries, Japan’s Noh theater has provided a dynamic space for exploring and communicating human emotion. The texts, music, acting, and theories that inform Noh were codified in the fourteenth century. Despite — or perhaps, because of these parameters, Noh has inspired modern authors, dancers, composers, and artists drawn to its themes of human suffering and release. Traditions Transfigured, which opens at NOMA on October 9th, features work by the Japanese artist Bidou Yamaguchi (b. 1970). Trained to make reproductions of historic Noh masks, the artist has, since 2003, radicalized this traditional idea and practice. Yamaguchi’s masks apply the forms, techniques, transformative spirit, and mysterious elegance of Noh masks to iconic female portraits from the European art historical canon, as well as to Kabuki actor prints by Sharaku, Japan’s enigmatic eighteenth century portrait master. Not unlike a human face, the work of Bidou Yamaguchi opens itself to many angles of interpretation. Yamaguchi’s art speaks to issues such as cultural identity, gender, portraiture performance, representation, and appropriation, as

FA L L P R E V I E W: T H E NOH M A S K S OF BI D OU YA M AGUC H I

well as the roles of beauty and craft in Noh masks, contemporary art, and modern sculpture. Following the structure of a Noh drama, the exhibition is separated into three parts. The prologue introduces Noh, Yamaguchi’s reproduction masks, and the concept of inherent creativity in the faithful reproduction of old forms. The dramatic core of the exhibition showcases Yamaguchi’s sculptural portraits, drawn from both Japanese and Western traditions. The exhibition culminates in an interactive space where visitors have the opportunity to explore the process of mask making, learn more of the subtle expressiveness of Noh masks, and experience the transfigurative power of donning a mask. The exhibition posits that the artist’s work is informed by the world of Noh, and that his work, in turn, offers insight into this diversely creative realm of theater and image making. By transfiguring both European and Japanese artistic traditions, Bidou Yamaguchi’s work merges past and present. More important, it allows contemporary audiences to uncover deeper dimensions of their own humanity. By imagining ourselves wearing different faces, we can forge deeper spiritual connections with each other.

Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi will be on view October 9, 2015 – January 10, 2016 in the third floor Japanese galleries. A catalogue, edited by Kendall Brown, Ph.D., the guest curator of the exhibition, will be available in the Museum Shop. Dr. Brown is a Professor of Asian Art History in the School of Art at California State University, Long Beach. This essay has been adapted from the catalogue.

Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi was developed by UAM in cooperation with Dr. Kendall Brown and the CSULB Museum Studies Students. Artworks are on loan from artist Bidou Yamaguchi; the Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and Steve McLeod Collection; Scripps College, Claremont, CA; USC Pacific Asia Museum Collection, Gift of Peter Ries; Sebastian Izzard, LLC; and the Target Corporate Collection. Photography © 2013 UAM. The New Orleans presentation is sponsored in part by the Japan Foundation, New York.

Please join us for the opening of the exhibition on the evening of October 9th. Bidou Yamaguchi and Dr. Brown will present a lecture at 6 p.m. in the Stern Auditorium. Following the lecture will be a walk-through of the exhibition.

Japan Fest will be held on Saturday, October 10th from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. During the festival, Dr. Brown and the artist will provide walk-throughs of the exhibition.

LEFT: Mona Lisa, 2003. Bidou Yamaguchi, Japanese cypress, seashell, natural pigment, lacquer, 8.27 x 5.31 x 2.76 in., Collection of Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and Steve McLeod

RIGHT: Delphic Sibyl, 2007, Bidou Yamaguchi, Japanese cypress, seashell, natural pigment, lacquer, 8.46 x 6.69 x 3.66 in., Courtesy of the artist


EXHIBITIONS

P R OM IS E D GI F TS :

OL D PA R IS P OR C E L A I N

In NOMA’s exhibition A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context (see page 10) there are several examples of Paris porcelain that will come to the museum as promised gifts from the collection of Dr. Ralph Lupin. An exhibition of antebellum Southern taste would not be complete without the ornate Old Paris porcelain accessories that were treasured in nineteenth-century homes of the Deep South. The late Dr. Lupin, recipient of NOMA’s 2015 Isaac Delgado Memorial Award, funded the Lupin Center for Decorative Arts as part of the museum’s 1993 expansion and gifted NOMA his collection of Japanese Imari porcelain. Now his family continues his long-time support of NOMA with the gift of his broad collection of Paris porcelain. “Old Paris Porcelain” is a general term that applies to more than 30

independent decorators of porcelain in and around nineteenth century Paris. These French porcelains were frequently exported to the United States, especially to the American South. Many Old Paris Porcelain pieces are unmarked, because the artisans usually worked from blank white wares sold anonymously by more famous factories at Limoges or Sevres. An exception are pieces marked with a J and P from the Fontainebleau factory of Jacob Petit. Petit is one of the most well-known designers of Old Paris Porcelain. He designed a wide range of styles that were appreciated during an era that adored ornament — celebrating Neoclassicism in the early nineteenth century, flourishing through the flowering of the rococo revival style at mid-century, and finally, experimenting with the taste for exoticism after about 1860.

Jacob Petit (French, 1796–1865), Pair of vases, ca. 1840. Hard-paste porcelain. NOMA, Promised Gift of the Estate of E. Ralph Lupin.

If you’ve visited NOMA recently, you may have noticed construction in the third floor elevator lobby.

This renovation will result in new spaces to display works from NOMA’s Mesoamerican collection and new windows at either end of the third floor wings that will give visitors views of City Park and the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

These compact gallery spaces will be completed by the end of the summer, and construction on the second floor elevator lobby will begin in the near future.

In the meantime, please continue to visit the third floor, where our significant collections of African, Oceanic, and Japanese art are still on view.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to enhance the museum experience!

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COLLECTIONS

I N T R ODUCI NG K AT I E P FOH L :

NOM A’ S C U R AT OR OF MODE R N A N D

C ON T E M P OR A RY A RT

NOMA recently welcomed Katie Pfohl as the museum’s new Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Pfohl has previously served as a curator at the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, and also has curatorial experience working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Modern and contemporary art was a major focus of Pfohl’s Ph.D. at Harvard University, which she completed this past May. Arts Quarterly spoke with Katie about being a curator in the South and her future plans for NOMA’s collection.

You’ve had a lot of experience working with art museums in the Northeast. However, your recent curatorial appointments have been in the South. Do these different regions affect the focus of your curatorial projects? During graduate school, I spent a summer driving around the South for a research project. I was struck by the incredible art and culture in the region and how little I had heard about it while studying American art at Harvard. To me, being a curator in the Gulf South means creating a more expansive vision of American art, by bringing

in new voices and perspectives and championing the terrific—and often overlooked—art done here.

You’ve said before that “[you] believe there is no better place to think in global terms about modern and contemporary art than Louisiana.” Why is that the case?Louisiana is a crossroads of culture, with historical and contemporary ties to Europe, Central and South America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Louisiana offers a unique opportunity to think in global terms about art in ways that are still rooted in local culture.

What do you see as being the core strengths of NOMA’s contemporary and modern art collection? Where would you like to focus more attention?NOMA has done a fantastic job of building a collection of art from Louisiana that reflects major national and international developments in art-making over the last century. I hope to further draw connections between Louisiana and the wider world. I am also interested in growing the museum’s terrific sculpture collection and incorporating installation, video, and performance work.

COLLECTIONS

NOM A ON T H E R OA D

Traveling this summer? Keep your eyes peeled for these works from NOMA’s collection in venues across the country.

COLLECTION WORKS ON LOAN:

Edgar Degas, French, 1834-1917Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas, 1872 Oil on canvas

Museum purchase, 65.1

Currently on loan to Denver Art Museum as part

of the exhibition In Bloom: Painting Flowers in the

Age of Impressionism, July 19 – October 11, 2015

Senufo Artist, Kiembara Faction Poro Society Face Mask (Kpélié), Mid-20th century (pictured above)

Wood, pigment

Museum purchase with funds from an

anonymous donor, 95.63

Currently on loan to St. Louis Art Museum as

part of the exhibition Senufo: Art and Identity in

West Africa, June 28 –September 27, 2015

TRAVELING EXHIBITION:

Architecture as Art St. Tammany Art Association

September 12 – October 31, 2015

This selection of paintings from NOMA’s

permanent collection will be on view at the

St. Tammany Art Association later this summer.

The opening reception will be held on September

12 from 6 – 9 p.m. and is open to the public.


COLLECTIONS

B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S

W I T H NOM A’ S

DIGI T I Z AT ION T E A M

For over two years now, NOMA’s digitization team — comprised of Digital Assets Manager Sesthasak Boonchai and Digital Photographer Roman Alokhin — has been documenting and archiving 10,000 works from the museum’s collection through the help of a Museums for America grant bestowed to NOMA by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In the fall, the digital images and files they have created will be made available on NOMA’s website for the public to enjoy. In anticipation of this release, Arts Quarterly spoke at length with the team about the project, the end product, and the process of creating it.

Tell us a little about your job.

SB I help organize and distribute all of the images and other digital assets that we have in the museum. I also book and set up Roman, our photographer, for his day-to-day proceedings.

RA I take pictures of our collection, as well as events or anything that’s happening at the museum.

When did this job become popularized?

SB The process of archival work goes back many decades. Over time, it has changed. People have created better workflows and have a better understanding of what the difference is between conserving and storing something and displaying something.

RA The means and technologies were different. That’s part of our presence here— to help facilitate and implement newer technology.

What tools and programs do you work with on a regular basis?

RA I use digital SLR cameras. One is used for photographing of the collection and the other is for events. They perform differently.

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What is the difference in performance between the two?

RA One is better for low-light candid photography than the other. For both, I have a selection of lenses that I use. We use manual macro-capable lenses for our collection, and I use fast prime lenses for event and non-collection photography. I do the post-production of non-collection photography, and Seth works on the collection-related photography.

What is the post-production for the non-collection like?

RA We currently use Adobe products to first import and tag the pictures. We use raw files that we eventually convert to other formats for various uses at the museum. You have to do corrections to make the picture usable. I do all of that massaging. Then I export those pictures for whatever uses we have.

What is the post-production process like for the collection?

SB It’s very similar in most ways. The main difference is that I have a very strict set of parameters that fall within the established archiving guidelines for digital assets in a cultural institution. I have particular file formats I have to build from and then archive in our storage room.

Does a digital experience compare to the in-person viewing of art? How do you try to preserve the integrity of that experience — or do you?

SB We follow guidelines set by a number of cultural institutions for producing the artwork. In the collections end of the post-production process, there is very minimal retouching. Part of the joy of any collection is that the object ages and changes over time. Our current technology gives the viewer an even closer look at the objects. We have a number of things in the collection that can’t be viewed because they could be damaged, but if we make a really wonderful high-resolution versions of them, somebody could log on to the website and see these objects up close and in great detail. It’s a very different experience than going to a museum.

RA Digitization is great for researchers. But from a viewer’s experience, it’s a teaser to the actual in-person experience with an object.

You’ve mentioned the archival, distributive, and consumptive purposes that these photos are taken for. Do these varying purposes affect the way you mediate between the viewer and the art, or do you use the same methods across the board?

RA I take photographs from the perspective of the viewer’s experience. To me, the most important thing is to portray our museum as something that

the public needs to come and experience themselves. As far as the collection is concerned, that’s where Seth and I have to work to accurately show the object as it is. It’s more about integrity.

Where do the digitization team and the public meet?

SB Right now, our main goal is to create the files that will be used on the website. By this fall, we hope that the collections that have been digitized will be made available online.

What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on thus far?

RA Being photographers by nature, we really enjoyed the photography collection. It was a treat to go through one of the best collections in the country.

SB I would actually agree. We had a grant project in digitization, which was really intense because of the sheer quantity of images that had to be made. It proved to the museum that there was a need for better resources to deal with all of the content that they wanted to create. From that grant project grew the implementation of a new asset management program and storage system. Now we’re seeing all these really great small projects from the Department of Interpretation and Audience Engagement and from the Curatorial Department that start with the assets we’ve already generated. That’s really cool.

NOMA’S DIGITIZATION TEAM Digital Assets Manager Sesthasak Boonchai and Digital Photographer Roman Alokhin are working to provide online access to NOMA’s collections.

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One étagère. Two gilded pier mirrors. Ten calla lily curtain tie backs. Twelve pieces of upholstered parlor furniture. Fifteen silk tassels. All saved by 154 years of careful preservation by six generations of Louisiana women. In A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context, NOMA celebrates the acquisition of one of the South’s most intact pre-Civil War domestic interiors. This Victorian parlor was amassed in the decade before the Civil War by Harriet Flower Mathews for her Greenwood Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. The furnishings include wool wall-to-wall carpeting from 1852, original 1861 silk upholstered furniture, towering gilt pier mirrors, and an ornate rosewood étagère. Louisiana Parlor places these newly conserved furnishings alongside Mathews family portraits and documentation, telling a remarkable story of one of the most dramatic decades in American history. On April 24, 1861, not two weeks after Confederate General Beauregard opened fire on Union troops at Fort Sumter, beginning four years of bloody Civil War, the Northern furniture retailer Hubbell & Curtis wrote in a panic to their Southern client, Harriet Matthews in St. Francisville: “We are aware that troublesome times are come to all parts of our country… Our business is nearly ruined… Hoping that you will find it convenient to remit us the [amount] of your bill.” Mathews owed Hubbell & Curtis $467 (about $13,000 in 2015 dollars) for a large furniture order, a rosewood parlor suite in the rococo revival style. Popular in America between 1845 and 1865, this style was inspired by eighteenth-century French design sources, so it was sometimes called “Modern French” in the period. The revival style was characterized by curved legs, bold C- and S- curves and scrolls, and the extravagant use of carved, naturalistic ornament, particularly fruit and flowers. Mathews’s parlor suite had deep red silk upholstery brocaded with flowers, and the wood crest rail of each chair is deeply carved with detailed flowers and scrolls. The Louisiana parlor Mathews created is a quintessential example of rococo revival. The many pieces of furniture spread out over a field of rose flowers provided by wall-to-wall wool strip carpeting. Mathews ordered the floral motif carpet in 1852 through I. Meyer & Hofman, a dry goods dealer in Bayou Sara, located just a few miles from her home. Mathews placed dramatic nine-foot tall gilt pier mirrors between the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. These imported mirrors and the five silk lambrequin curtains were retailed in 1859 and 1860 through C. Flint & Jones, cabinet furniture retailers located at 4446 Royal Street in New Orleans. The profuse flowers, rose colors, rich woods, flanking mirrors, and festive tassels all combined to create the sumptuous air of a room that was perfectly en vogue in 1860. It was a formal room suited for entertainment by the wealthy owner of four Louisiana agricultural plantations with enslaved workers producing sugarcane, indigo, corn, and cotton. A prosperous woman when she assembled her parlor, Harriet Mathews was not in the same powerful position when Hubbell & Curtis wrote again on January 2, 1867, six years later after the

PHOTO Butler Greenwood Plantation, St. Francisville, Louisiana, August 2014

A Louisiana ParlorVICTORIAN FURNISHINGS WITH STORIES TO TELL


Civil War ended. “Dear friend,” the furniture retailers began. “We now call your attention to your bill of furniture shipped in the fall of 1861... We suppose that as you are abundantly able it to be right to charge you the interest for five years at 7 percent making in all $630.49.” Though the records do not show if Mathews paid this long due bill, the retailers were wrong to assume that she was abundantly able. United States census records for the Mathews family estimate that their real estate was worth $100,000 in 1860, but only $5,000 in 1870. Mathews’s parlor stood unchanged through the next 154 years, while six generations of her progeny kept the furnishings protected from light, evolving fashion, and household incidents. Today, Anne L. Butler co-owns the Butler-Greenwood Plantation with her sister Mary Minor Butler Hebert of Austin, Texas. Butler orchestrated the move of her family’s historic parlor interior to NOMA, saying, “We feel like this is the absolute ideal solution for the preservation of the room — that it will move intact as an installation in the New Orleans Museum of Art. We are delighted.” Now a part of the NOMA permanent collection, Harriet Flower Mathews’s rosewood parlor furniture, tattered but still vivid floral carpet, étagère display cabinet, gilt mirrors, tasseled silk lambrequin curtains, and all ten calla lily curtain tiebacks are guaranteed to be preserved for future generations. NOMA acquired the contents of the parlor in 2014 and has over the past year been working with art conservators to carefully clean

“Mathews’s parlor stood unchanged through the next 154 years, while six generations of her progeny kept the furnishings protected.”

Parlor at Butler Greenwood Plantation, August 2014. Photo by Roman Alokhin.

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and stabilize the fragile textiles for exhibition. In Louisiana Parlor, the furnishings are shown alongside family portraits on loan from The Historic New Orleans Collection, including ca. 1825 portraits of Harriet Flower Mathews and her husband Judge George Mathews attributed to artist John Wesley Jarvis. To give wider context to the agricultural economy surrounding this plantation parlor, the exhibition includes copies of Mathews family letters and receipts housed at the Louisiana State University library and a rare Brooks Brothers formal livery jacket worn by an enslaved house servant from the related Mercer family. Drawing from NOMA’s deep collection of decorative arts, the exhibition includes a display of other nineteenth-century styles that drew on history for inspiration. Neoclassicism, Gothic revival, rococo revival, and Renaissance revival styles are comprehensively illustrated with furniture, glass, ceramics, silver, and paintings. These objects beautifully show the era’s appreciation for rich ornamentation. These layers of interpretation for this parlor — from nineteenth century hand-written letters to contemporary conversations about art conservation — form the basis of one of NOMA’s new ARTtab iPad gallery interactives. This new module lets visitors dive deeply into the details of Harriet Flower Mathews’s beautiful and historically rich parlor.

Mel Buchanan, RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design

LEFT Portrait of Chief Justice George Mathews, ca. 1825, Attributed to John Wesley Jarvis, Oil on canvas. The Historic New Orleans Collection, partial gift of Anne Butler, 2013.0257.1.

RIGHT Portrait of Mrs. George Mathews, née Harriet Flower, between 1845 & 1849, Unknown artist, Oil on canvas. The Historic New Orleans Collection, partial gift of Anne Butler, 2013.0257.3.

A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context will be on view from June 26 to October 11, 2015 in the Ella West Freeman Galleries. The exhibition is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and is sponsored by the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Mr. and Mrs. Prescott N. Dunbar in memoriam Paul M. Haygood, and by Carol Flower Layton Parsons.

AUGUST 14 | 6 P.M. | LECTUREConservation of the Butler Greenwood parlor at the New Orleans Museum of ArtHoward Sutcliffe of River Region Costume & Textile Conservation

SEPTEMBER 18 | 6 P.M. | LECTURELeon Waters of Hidden History Tours

OCTOBER 2 | 6 P.M. | LECTURESlavery in the ParlorDr. Mary Niall Mitchell, Midlo Chair for New Orleans Studies, University of New Orleans


LEARN

SU M M E R CA M P E R S L E A R N A N D P L AY

NOMA’s Summer Art Camp is an annual opportunity for children ages 5 through 10 to experiment with the visual and performing arts in an informal and educational setting. Editorial intern Lauren Stroh recently shadowed this summer’s 8 to 10 year olds as they learned about the origins of surrealist art, painted still lifes, and rehearsed and performed their own original plays.

On day one, campers created sketchbooks and learned to differentiate between warm and cool colors and organic and geometric shapes. Their work featured many examples of these distinctions: blank circles and red and black checkerboards juxtaposed with the likes of bright suns, blue moons, and interestingly enough — pink clouds. When asked about her inspiration, Felicia, age 10, explained that she consciously chose to paint sunset with various pinks, reds, and yellows because it is a characteristically warm time of day. (She was quick to add that her parents have a habit of telling her that when there are pink clouds in the sky, people should remember to say, “I love you.”) These young artists painted happily and chattered amongst themselves until their teacher, Mr. Nick, called for them to line up for a visit to the George L. Viavant Gallery on the second floor. Here they learned of the surrealists, who, as Mr. Nick reminded them, were inspired by dreams, nightmares, and other fantastical things. The drawings and sculptures in Joseph Cornell’s eerie fantasy world commonly reminded campers of angels, cats, snow, oceans, and like most things of interest to children their age, Disney’s 2013 blockbuster film Frozen. On to the first floor galleries, where campers learned to notice light and

shadows in still life paintings. Campers took these lessons to task in the studio, where they painted an improvised and eclectic still life of their own, the contents of which included a vase, a Mardi Gras mask, a blue blanket, a basketball, an inflatable palm tree, blue corduroy cloth, a teapot, and a globe. Some students were overwhelmed by the abundance of materials available for them to include in their picture. Mr. Nick reminded campers that art is creative and imaginative and they can include as little or as much as they so choose. Somewhat surprisingly, campers were largely quiet and concentrated during this part of the day. However, Daliah, age 8, informed me that such surprise was misplaced, as she had been a serious artist for quite sometime now. “Pre-K 4 is basically art school,” she claimed. The next time Arts Quarterly caught up with these campers, they were deep in rehearsals for final productions of their plays, which were inspired by works of art in NOMA’s galleries and their own imaginations. Plots included revenge, lonely squares, war, cows, the sun exploding, and very bad haircuts. Dress rehearsals were held in the Stern Auditorium, and campers donned vibrant costumes of bright wigs and tutus in hues not unlike Frederick Brown’s colorful portraits of jazz and blues musicians that lined the walls. Warm ups led by their drama instructor Mr. Andy included boisterous rounds of yelling, whispering, singing, yawning, howling, and making silly faces, and rehearsals were not any less humorous, as campers acted out scenes comprised of illogical arguments and found themselves in the midst of highly improbable situations. These children, funny, bright, and courageous, certainly had a tight grasp on the theater of the absurd.

PHOTOS BY ROMAN ALOKHIN

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VISIT

“ARTFUL PALATE” SUMMER COOKING SERIES RETURNS

Café NOMA’s Artful Palate summer cooking series returns in 2015 with seven art-inspired cooking demonstrations led by Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group chefs. NOMA’s exhibition A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context celebrates the acquisition of a superb rococo revival parlor from the Butler-Greenwood Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. In honor of the exhibition, the Artful Palate demonstrations will feature Creole-inspired dishes and traditions. Chefs from Café NOMA, Ralph’s on the Park, café b, Red Fish Grill, Brennan’s, Heritage Grill, and Napoleon House will lead the demonstrations, along with local guest chefs and purveyors as well. Artful Palate is free of charge and open on a first come, first served basis.

July 10 Chef Austin Kirznerof Red Fish Grill with Covey Rise Farm & Chappapeela Farms

July 24 Chef Michael Uddoof café b

August 7 Chef Chip Flanaganof Ralph’s on the Park

August 21 Chef Slade Rushingof Brennan’s with guest chef Allison Vines-Rushing

September 4Chef Steven Marsellaof Heritage Grill and Ralph Brennan Catering & Events

September 18 Chef Chris Monteroof Café NOMA and Napoleon House

SU M M E R P R O GR A M S

This summer, NOMA is planning a full schedule of programs to keep visitors of all ages active, learning, and engaged. Step out of the heat and into the cool museum this summer!

NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM MONTH

August marks the second annual New Orleans Museum Month, a membership exchange program where members of participating institutions receive reciprocal membership at any other participating institution during the month of August. Last year, over 2,250 members across institutions participated. This summer, use your membership to explore a museum you’ve never visited before. Not a member at any of these? Then become one and visit them all!

Ashé Cultural Arts Center Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium Beauregard Keyes House Confederate Memorial Hall Museum Contemporary Arts Center New OrleansThe Historic New Orleans CollectionLe Musee de fpcLongue Vue House and GardensMadame John’s Legacy George and Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art The National WWII Museum New Orleans Museum of ArtThe Ogden Museum of Southern Art Old. U.S. Mint Pitot House and Louisiana Landmarks SocietySouthern Food and Beverage Museum

NOONTIME TALKS

Every Wednesday in August at 12 p.m., NOMA will host Noontime Talks—brief, casual discussions on exhibitions or works of art in the galleries, given by NOMA curators and special guests. Wednesdays are free thanks to The Helis Foundation, so stop in and learn something new!

August 5Mel BuchananRosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at NOMA

August 12Katie Hall BurlisonCurator at the Louisiana State Museum

August 19Erin GreenwaldCurator at The Historic New Orleans Collection

August 26Russell LordFreeman Family Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at NOMA

LATE NIGHT AT NOMA

Mark your calendars for Friday, August 14. NOMA will stay open until midnight for a night of live music, programs, and great art in celebration of Louisiana arts, culture, and entertainment. Enjoy performances by Amanda Shaw and Michot’s Melody Makers, catch lectures on A Louisiana Parlor with curator Mel Buchanan and conservator Howard Sutcliffe, watch the 1964 film Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte in the Stern Auditorium, and get a unique tour with comedians from The New Movement. We’re also planning artist programs, art activities, a scavenger hunt, food trucks, and more! Check noma.org in the coming weeks for a full schedule of events. Join us!

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Foundation and Government Support

$500,000 and aboveCollins C. Diboll Private FoundationThe Gulf Seafood and Tourism Promotional Fund

$200,000 - $499,999The Azby Fund

The Elise M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation

The Harry T. Howard III Foundation

The Helis Foundation

$150,000 - $199,999City of New Orleans

$100,000-$149,000Ella West Freeman Foundation

The Ford Foundation

Lois and Lloyd Hawkins Jr. Foundation

The New Orleans Museum of Art gratefully acknowledges our donors, who make our exhibitions, programming, and daily operations possible. We appreciate your continued support of NOMA and its mission. Thank you!

For additional information on exhibition or event sponsorship and program support, please contact Brooke Minto at (504) 658-4107 or [email protected].

SUPPORT

$50,000-$99,999 American Council of Learned Societies

The Institute of Museum and Library Services

The RosaMary Foundation

The Selley Foundation

Zemurray Foundation

$20,000 - $49,999 Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation

Louisiana Division of the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

Samuel H. Kress Foundation

$10,000-$19,999Anonymous

Bayou District Foundation

Lee and Jeffrey Feil Family Foundation, Inc.

The Garden Study Club of New Orleans

Goldring Family Foundation

New Orleans Theater Association

Times-Picayune Classroom Enrichment Program Fund

Ruby K. Worner Charitable Trust

Corporate and Individual Support

$100,000 and aboveGayle and Tom Benson

Sydney and Walda Besthoff

IBERIABANK

Estate of Frances T. Kreihs

$50,000 - $99,999Chevron

Estate of Albert and Rea Hendler

The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau

Joshua Mann Pailet

Sheila and H. Britton Sanderford

Kitty and Stephen Sherrill

Phyllis M. Taylor

$20,000-$49,999 Susan and Ralph Brennan

Minnie and Jimmy Coleman

Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen

Whitney Bank

$10,000-$19,999 Dr. H. Russell Albright

Mary and Larry Antonini

Lynne A. Burkart

Capital One

Margo and Clancy DuBos

First NBC Bank

Juli Miller Hart

International-Matex Tank Terminals

Coya and Frank Levy

Lexus of New Orleans

Elizabeth and Willy Monaghan

Pan-American Life Insurance Group

Peoples Health

Regions Bank

Jolie and Robert Shelton

Dawn Wheelahan

For more information on the NOMA Business Council, please contact Gia Rabito at (504) 658-4129 or [email protected].

NOM A BUSINESS COUNCIL

PlatinumFirst Bank and Trust

Hyatt Regency New Orleans

Superior Energy Services, Inc.

GoldCapital One Wealth and Asset Management

Chevron

Jones Walker

The New Orleans Convention and Visitor’s Bureau

Frank B. Stewart Jr.

Gary and Martha Solomon

SapphireBayou Lacombe Construction Company

SilverAnonymous

Bellwether Technology

Corporate Realty

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Phelps Dunbar, LLP

World Trade Center of New Orleans

BronzeEskew + Dumez + Ripple

First NBC Bank

Kim Starr Wise Floral Events

Solomon Group

GreenBasin St. Station

Boh Bros. Construction Company, LLC

Crescent Capital Consulting

Dupuy Storage & Forwarding, LLC

Eclectic Investment Management

Ernst & Young

Gulf Coast Bank & Trust Company

Hammack, Hammack, Jones, LLC

Helm Paint and Supply

Hotel Monteleone

Johnson Rice and Company, LLC

Laitram, LLC

Neal Auction Company

New Orleans Auction Galleries

Pan-American Life Insurance Group

Premium Parking Service

Reily Foods Company

Transoceanic Development, LLC

Whitney Bank

H. Russell Albright

Wayne Amedee

Larry W. Anderson

R. Cary Bond and Henry M. Lambert

Honorable Steven R. Bordner

E. John Bullard

Joseph and Sue Ellen Canizaro

Mrs. Carmel (Babette) Cohen

Dr. and Mrs. Isidore Cohn Jr.

Prescott N. Dunbar

Lin Emery

William A. Fagaly

Randy Fertel

Lyn and John Fischbach

Tim and Ashley Francis

Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Freeman

Sandra D. Freeman

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen A. Hansel

Abba J. Kastin, MD

Lee Ledbetter and Douglas Meffert

Thomas B. Lemann

Dr. Edward Levy

Judith Young Oudt

Pixie and James Reiss

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Renwick

John and Tania Messina

Anne and King Milling

James A. Mounger

Mrs. Charles S. Reily Jr

Arthur Roger

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Rosen

Brian Sands


Mrs. Frederick Stafford

Nancy Stern

Mercedes B. Whitecloud

ISA AC DELGADO SOCIETY

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NOM A CIRCLES

President’s CircleMr. and Mrs. Sydney J. Besthoff III

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph O. Brennan

Mr. and Mrs. David F. Edwards

Ms. Adrea D. Heebe and Mr. Dominick A. Russo Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Mayer

Mrs. Robert Nims


Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Sherrill

Mrs. Patrick F. Taylor

Director’s CircleMr. and Mrs. Herschel L. Abbott Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Bertuzzi

Mr. Daryl G. Byrd

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Coleman

Dr. and Mrs. Scott S. Cowen

Ms. Deborah Augustine Elam and Mr. Cary Grant

Mrs. H. Mortimer Favrot Jr.

Ms. Tina Freeman and Mr. Philip Woollam

Mrs. Lawrence D. Garvey

Mr. Jerry Heymann

Mr. Robert Hinckley

Mr. and Mrs. Michael D. Moffitt

Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Patrick

Mrs. Charles S. Reily Jr.


Mr. and Mrs. Brian A. Schneider

Ms. Debra B. Shriver

Mr. and Mrs. Bruce L. Soltis

Mrs. Harold H. Stream Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Taylor

Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Thomas

Patron’s CircleDr. Ronald G. Amedee and Dr. Elisabeth H. Rareshide

Mr. Brent Barriere and Ms. Judy Barrasso

Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Baumer Jr.

Dr. Siddharth K. Bhansali

Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Boh

Ms. Dorothy Brennan

Dr. and Mrs. Isidore Cohn Jr.

Mrs. Marjorie J. Colomb

Mr. Leonard A. Davis and Ms. Sharon Jacobs

Mr. and Mrs. James J. Frischhertz

Mr. and Mrs. Edward N. George

Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Goodyear

Mr. and Mrs. Pres Kabacoff

Mr. and Mrs. H. Merritt Lane III

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Lemann

Dr. Edward D. Levy Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. J. Thomas Lewis

Ms. Elizabeth Livingston

Mr. and Mrs. Paul J. Masinter

Ms. Kay McArdle

Mr. and Mrs. R. King Milling

Mrs. Louise Moffett

Dr. and Mrs. Pavan Narra

Dr. Howard and Dr. Joy D. Osofsky

Mr. Joshua Pailet

Dr. and Mrs. James F. Pierce

Ms. Sally E. Richards

Mr. and Mrs. James C. Roddy

Mr. and Mrs. David P. Schulingkamp

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Shearer

Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. Siegel

Ms. E. Alexandra Stafford and Mr. Raymond M. Rathle Jr.

Mrs. Frederick M. Stafford

Dr. and Mrs. Richard L. Strub

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen F. Stumpf Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. James L. Taylor

Ms. Catherine Burns Tremaine

Mr. and Mrs. Steven W. Usdin

Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Brent Wood

NOM A CIRCLES GET INSIDER ACCESS TO MODER NIST HOME

On May 28, NOMA Circles members gathered for a private reception at the recently renovated Uptown home of Lee Ledbetter and Douglas Meffert.

Nathaniel “Buster” Curtis, an architect of the Superdome, was the original resident of Ledbetter and Meffert’s historic registered home, built in 1963. Ledbetter offered guests a tour of the 4,100-square-foot modernist marvel, which he and Meffert purchased in 2013.

Ledbetter, the project architect of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, is also a member of NOMA’s Director’s Council. The Director’s Council is an advisory council composed of civic and business leaders in the New Orleans community and beyond.

For more information or to join NOMA’s Circles, please contact Brooke Minto at (504) 658-4107 or [email protected].

Abba J. Kastin, MD

Lee Ledbetter and Douglas Meffert

Thomas B. Lemann

Dr. Edward Levy

Judith Young Oudt

Pixie and James Reiss

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Renwick

John and Tania Messina

Anne and King Milling

James A. Mounger

Mrs. Charles S. Reily Jr

Arthur Roger


Brian Sands


Mrs. Frederick Stafford

Nancy Stern

Mercedes B. Whitecloud1. Lee Ledbetter

2. Brenda Moffitt and Margo DuBos

3. Anne Baños and Elizabeth Livingston

4. Toni Feinman and Sandra Carter-Green

5. Clancy DuBos and Steve Usdin

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SUPPORT

The NOMA Egg Hunt & Family Festival on March 28 attracted over 1,300 children and their families for a day filled with face painting, a petting zoo, art activities, and of course, egg hunts! Thanks to lead sponsor Catherine Burns Tremaine and all additional sponsors for making the day a fun-filled success. On April 30, NOMA kicked off the 2015 Odyssey presented by IBERIABANK and WDSU-TV on International Jazz Day, with a jazz brunch and live performances by Grammy Award winners Terence Blanchard and Poncho Sanchez.

Odyssey Chairs Robin Burgess and Terence Blanchard crafted an event perfect for festival season. After the jazz brunch, the party moved outside to the museum’s front steps, where Mayor Mitch Landrieu joined the audience in celebrating. A second line to the front gates of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival closed out the event. On June 25, NOMA opened the doors to the exhibition A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context. Organized by Mel Buchanan, NOMA’s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, this exhibition celebrates

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1. Christina Francis, Dr. Norman C. Francis, Kathleen Francis, David Francis

2. Friends from WDSU-TV

3. Suzanne Thomas and Sakari Morrison

4. Susan M. Taylor and Robin Burgess

5. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Terence Blanchard, Poncho Sanchez

the acquisition of a superb rococo revival parlor from the Butler-Greenwood Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana.

A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context will be on view from June 26 to October 11, 2015 in the Ella West Freeman Galleries. The exhibition is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and is sponsored by the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Mr. and Mrs. Prescott N. Dunbar in memoriam Paul M. Haygood, and by Carol Flower Layton Parsons.

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6. Joni Diaz, Elizabeth Wood, Heather Reznik

7. Chase Cunningham and Anne Butler

8. Lisa Rotondo-McCord, Mel Buchanan, Carol Flower Layton Parsons, Anne Butler

9. Susu Stall, Pam Lupin, Hope McCollam

10. Priscilla and John Lawrence

11. Curator Mel Buchanan leads a tour of A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context


SUPPORT

IN MEMORIAM: H. MORTIMER “TIM” FAVROT

On Sunday, May 10, 2015, longtime NOMA supporter and trustee Tim Favrot passed away. A graduate of the Tulane University School of Architecture and Harvard University, Favrot was a founder of Favrot and Shane Companies and was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2013. Since the 1980s, Favrot served on NOMA’s Board of Trustees, joining the museum’s leadership ranks as part of the expansion planning committee for the building addition completed in 1991. Drawing on his deep knowledge of design, architecture, construction and development, the museum increased its capacity to serve the community exponentially. Since the 1991 addition, Favrot continued to serve NOMA as a member of the museum’s Building and Grounds Committee, with oversight of this historic facility and the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. In 2014, Mr. and Mrs. Favrot generously established the Favrot Architecture and Design Endowment at NOMA. This endowment enables the museum to explore innovative architecture and design-focused curatorial strategies and programs that will engage NOMA’s audiences

on the distinctive architecture of New Orleans and the Gulf South. Favrot was a civic leader of the New Orleans community as well, being past President of both the New Orleans and the Louisiana chapters of the American Institute of Architects, the Preservation Resource Center,

past Chairman of the New Orleans City Planning Commission and the Louisiana Architects Selection Board, past Commander of the Louisiana Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars, past Vice President of the Board of the New Orleans Museum of Art, past Board member and Member Emeritus of the Tulane University Board of Administrators, Board member of the National World War II Museum, and past Board member of the Louisiana Landmarks Society, among others. “NOMA is sincerely grateful for Tim Favrot’s relentless dedication to the arts, education, and our city.,” said Susan M. Taylor, director of NOMA. “His continued generosity helped make our collection one of the most visible and responsive in the country. Tim was a cherished member of the NOMA family, and he will be greatly and sorely missed.”

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2014 Volunteer of the Year Debbie Fleming (standing second from left) pictured with her family

On March 8, 2015, NOMA held its annual Volunteer Appreciation Brunch, where volunteers were honored and celebrated for their contributions to NOMA. Debbie Fleming was named the Volunteer of the Year for 2014. Fleming joined the docent program in 2009 and has given museum tours to both school groups and adults. An active volunteer in NOMA’s Felix J. Dreyfous Library, she works diligently to repair books in the museum’s holdings. Her calligraphy skills have brought new life to old books. Fleming also participates in the Poets for Art program and NOMA Book Club, and is always willing to help out where needed. She is an essential part of the library. Thank you to Debbie Fleming and the hundreds of volunteers who give their time and dedication to NOMA!

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NAT IONA L E N D OW M E N T OF T H E A RTS GR A N T SU P P ORTS

NOM A’ S S PA N IS H C OL ON I A L A RT C OL L E C T ION

With the support of a National Endowment of the Arts grant, the New Orleans Museum of Art will re-present its collection of North and Latin American Spanish Colonial art to museum visitors beginning in November 2016. Much of the collection has been on long-term loan to museums across the United States for many years. Funds from the NEA grant will be allocated to the research, conservation, and installation of the collection. This collection of Latin American art from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries has considerable relevance to the city of New Orleans, which was once ruled under the Spanish crown and now serves as an important gateway for United States immigrants. Aside from the collection’s local cultural significance, capturing the National Endowment of the Arts’ attention indicates national scholarly interest in the extensive history that these works bring into discussion. “It is a delight to have the opportunity to facilitate local and national recognition of the exceptional

artistic output of the Spanish Colonial period,” Director Susan M. Taylor said. “We are deeply appreciative of the NEA’s generosity and willingness to recognize the quality and caliber of this rare, rich collection.” The collection features 100 pieces of seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century Spanish art and spans the colonial period into the Republican era, after the independence movements in Latin America. It is particularly abundant in objects from the Maya culture of Mexico and Central America and in painting and sculpture from Cuzco, the artistic center of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Although the complete collection has not been on view in New Orleans in recent years, it is considered to be one of the best gatherings of Spanish Colonial art in the country and is the largest of its kind in the South. A large portion of the collection was loaned to the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina twenty years ago, but returned to NOMA in 2012 after an incursion of academic research

and writing on Latin American cultural studies. As a result of such scholarship, NOMA turned fresh attention to the collection and in 2013, appointed Lucia Abramovich its first Curatorial Fellow for Spanish Colonial Art. About the collection, Abramovich says, “The re-installation of NOMA’s Spanish Colonial artworks will not only bring to view a world-class collection of Latin American art, it will provide the opportunity to develop interactive, bilingual content to better serve the Spanish-speaking community of Greater New Orleans. Receiving an NEA grant for the re-installation of the Spanish Colonial collection at NOMA is an incredible achievement for this project.” The installation will be located on the first floor of the museum and will open during the museum’s annual Odyssey in November 2016. The installation will also include interactive ARTtab modules that will give visitors in-depth information on objects in the collection.

Unidentified Artist, Cuzco School. The Triumph of the Church. Ca. 1700. Museum purchase, the Ella West Freeman Foundation Matching Fund.


SUPPORT

ODY S S E Y 2 01 5 C ON T I N U E S W I T H A S P ONS OR PA RT Y

P E R FOR M A NC E B Y MON ICA M A NCI N I

This year, NOMA’s annual Odyssey gala has been re-envisioned as a three-part celebration of visual arts, music, and entertainment. Odyssey 2015 is presented by IBERIABANK and WDSU-TV and chaired by Robin Burgess and Terence Blanchard. To follow the Odyssey jazz brunch and second line the museum held on International Jazz Day on April 30, 2015, the second event of this year’s trifold celebration is a cocktail reception with a performance by Monica Mancini, Grammy-nominated artist and daughter of the late film composer Henry Mancini and studio singer Ginny O’Conner Mancini. The evening affair is to be held on Wednesday, November 11, 2015. “When I began thinking of the entertainment for the Odyssey 2015 Sponsor Party, there was only one person who I believed could wrap a space with her voice—enchanting everyone with a private, personal musical journey,” said Robin Burgess. “She is, without a doubt, a breathtaking performer who captures her audience from the very first note. Terence and I love her. He is excited to join her for the Sponsor Party in a small, exclusive jazz performance tailored just for our Odyssey sponsors.”

In anticipation of Mancini’s fall performance, Arts Quarterly spoke with the artist about her family, her career, and her ties to New Orleans.

You grew up in a musical home. When did you start singing, and did you always know that music would be a part of your life the way it is now?MM Not in a big way. You’re right—we did grow up in a really musical house, but it wasn’t because my dad was a musician. It was because music was just really something that we listened to. We listened to the radio constantly and played records. So you know, it wasn’t a function of [my dad being a musician]. It was just that we loved listening to music. People get the notion that we all sat around the piano and watched Dad play his music and that just wasn’t what it was.

When did you start singing?My very first professional gig was when my dad was playing with Johnny Mathis at Lake Tahoe. It was a 3 week summer engagement at the Sierra-at-Tahoe, and he hired my sister and I. We were in the Henry Mancini Chorus for the first time, and that’s when I got my first paycheck. I was 14 or 15, and that got me into a professional mode. I really started working in my early twenties answering ads in the Daily Variety. They had ads for “singers who move well” — that was the quote you always read. I sought out gigs that way, through open auditions and things like that. The first time I went I was singing with Peter Marshall and the Chapter Five. We opened in Las Vegas and my parents came. My mother said, “I didn’t even know she sang.” They were shocked when they actually saw me on stage doing this gig. She just shook her

head and was like, “I had no idea.” It was pretty funny. But she is the one who sort of steered me on that path because she was a singer here in Los Angeles. That’s how she met my dad. She was the band singer and he was the piano player in the Glenn Miller Band. Back in the day — in the 60s and 70s, and the 50s, too — they had a lot of variety shows on the air, and she was one of the girl singers that would go from studio to studio and be one of the singers on the shows. She was very active in that world, so that’s where I got the idea to do that. I was a studio singer well before I was a soloist. She led me down that path, not my dad; I don’t have his chops in any way. He couldn’t sing and I can’t compose, so I definitely am my mother’s daughter in that regard.

It’s interesting, like you said, that people have this image of you and the family sitting around your dad playing the piano.Yep. Well, didn’t you?

Exactly! I did. But of course it makes more sense that there would be a more of a conventional parent-teenager dynamic.Totally! We grew up and my parents were working. We went to school. They went to work. We’d have dinner. It was just like Father Knows Best. [laughs]

You’ll be performing at our Odyssey sponsor party this fall; what can our guests expect from your performance?When I perform in concerts, I do my dad’s music mostly. I’m on my sixth CD at this point, so I’m sure I’ll perform some of my own songs as well. I’ll definitely sing some jazz; my dad has a lot of jazz influences in his music.

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S AV E T H E DAT E FOR

L OV E I N T H E GA R DE N

NOMA’s annual fall soiree in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden will be held on Friday, September 25, 2015. Chaired by Robyn and Andrew Schwarz and Margaret and Pierre Villere, this year’s LOVE in the Garden, presented by Regions Bank, will honor New Orleans artists Dawn DeDeaux, Tina Freeman, Susan Gisleson, Delaney Martin, and Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun. Guests will enjoy cuisine from over sixty New Orleans restaurants and caterers, and for the second year in a row, NOMA Young Fellows are organizing a craft cocktail competition featuring some of the city’s talented bar stars. Finally, NOLA food trucks will provide late-night fare to keep the party going into the evening. Join us for a night of dining and dancing under the stars and oaks in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden! For tickets and sponsorship information, please visit noma.org or contact (504) 658-4121.

Patron Party | 7 p.m. Members | $125 Non-Members $150 Garden Party | 8 p.m.with entertainment by MojeauxMembers | $75Non-Members | $100

Late Night Party | 9 p.m.with entertainment by DJ JubileeMembers and Non-Members | $50

IS A AC DE L GA D O S O CI ET Y P R OF I L E :

WAY N E A M E DE E

Why did you choose to become a member of the Isaac Delgado Society?I have been interested in NOMA for many years and have learned a lot about art from the curators and staff here. Throughout the building of my collection, I formed many long-standing friendships, and these meaningful associations led to my membership in the Isaac Delgado Society.

When did you start to consider planned giving?When my late wife Barbara and I first began collecting African art in the mid 1970s, we had no idea that we would be fortunate enough to assemble the collection that we have today, much less did we think that we would have anything that would be of interest to anyone besides ourselves, let alone a noted major museum. Upon the realization of this good fortune, we began to consider planned giving.

For the museum’s centennial we made a promised gift of a pair of African masks. We have also designated our African art collection as our major legacy gift to the museum. We believe it will be an important addition to the existing and significant African art collection at NOMA.

Why is giving to an art museum important to you?I have been interested in art from a very early age. Beginning when I was about 10 years old I regularly visited the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts [now known as the Dallas Museum of Art] every summer. These visits were seminal moments for me. Today I am a practicing artist and a collector of art.

What would you suggest to others who may be considering planned giving?Sometimes artists leave their entire body of work to NOMA, as did Robert Gordy. There are likely many items in one’s possession that could potentially be gifted to the museum. However, if some of these items or the entire oeuvre of an artist’s work do not fit into the museum’s collection, these pieces could be left with an understanding that they could be sold to further the interests of both the museum and the donor. For example, if the donor is interested in education, then perhaps these funds could go toward education, toward an existing fund within NOMA, or toward research.

There are many ways to support NOMA and leave a legacy. None of us really “own” anything — we just have it for a certain period of time. We hopefully share it both before and after we die, as well. We pass it on for the enjoyment and benefit of others.

Pair of Masks (Male and Female), circa 1920-30, Idoma Peoples, possibly Ochai, Ikom Region, Nigeria, Wood with pigment, Black mask: 10 x 7 x 6 in.; white mask: 9 1/2 x 7 x 5 in., Promised and partial gift of Barbara and Wayne Amedee, 2002.335.1,.2

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Arts Quarterly (ISSN 0740-9214) is published by the New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA 70124

© 2015, New Orleans Museum of Art. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or reprinted without permission of the publisher.

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Unidentified Artist, Cuzco School. The Triumph of the Church (Detail). Ca. 1700. Museum purchase, the Ella West Freeman Foundation Matching Fund.

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Rushed in Near Ten..., 2015; Dawn DeDeaux, American, born 1952; Polished Acrylic Slab with Embedded Digital Images; Courtesy of the Artist and Arthur Roger Gallery

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arts quarterly summer 2015

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