Terence Blanchard

Tonight at the Ogden, Terence Blanchard will premiere music from his upcoming album, "Choices," in our Patrick F. Taylor Library, an historic H. H. Richardson building attached to Goldring Hall. The new album, scheduled for release on August 18, was recorded in the library in early March, the first time Blanchard has recorded in his hometown.

A native of New Orleans who studied under Ellis Marsalis at the NOCCA Institute, Blanchard first emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. He went on to play trumpet for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, becoming the band's musical director, replacing Wynton Marsalis.

In 1990, Blanchard launched his solo career, and has since made a name for himself as trumpet player, band leader, arranger and composer in the hard bop tradition. His work as a film composer on over fifty films has reached a wide audience, and garnered numerous Grammy nominations. He is currently director of the Thelonius Monk Institute, and led the charge to move that institution to New Orleans from Los Angeles after Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures.

Tonight's event will feature Terence Blanchard and his band—Fabian Almazan on piano, Derrick Hodge on bass, Kendrick Scott on drums and Walter Smith III on saxophone, and special guest vocalist Bilal.

Bo Bartlett's Young Life

Bo Bartlett's Young Life, 1994, oil on linen.
Collection of Robin and Michael Wilkinson.

Bo Bartlett is an American realist painter born 1955 in Columbus, Georgia. At 19, he travelled to Florence, Italy to study painting under Ben Long. He went on to apprentice under Nelson Shanks and to study in several American schools including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and University of the Arts, PA. A Certificate in Filmmaking from New York University in 1986 led him to work with Betty Wyeth on a documentary film, titled Snow Hill, about her husband, Andrew Wyeth, who became both mentor and friend to Bartlett.

As an introduction to the exhibition of six large Bo Bartlett canvasses from the collection of Sandy and Otis Scarborough opening August 1st on the fifth floor of the Ogden Museum, Bartlett's 1994 painting, Young Life, has been installed in the atrium of Goldring Hall. Young Life is on loan from local collectors, Robin and Michael Wilkinson. An interesting detail of this masterwork is the inclusion of a deer tail in the frame, and deer hair in the paint. A small insect and dandelion seed have also gained immortality through inclusion under the paint.

Writing about The Fatherland (Study for Young Life) in February of 1994, Bartlett says:

"I saw my sister's son in this shirt and cap. I asked him to pose with his girlfriend in front of my father's truck. As I took the photo, my youngest son Eliot ran into the picture. This is a study for a larger painting, Young Love or Young Life or something."

He goes on to list a few influences:

"The Home of the Brave, that photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, Rockwell. Young America by Wyeth. That flower selling group by Picasso in the Barnes. American Gothic, Bruce Springsteen."

All of these things and more, combined with childhood memories (first love, the light walking home frome school, newspaper clippings of men with their kill) have combined in the artist's mind to create this simple, elegant realist painting that to this writer, is a truly iconic Southern image.

Peter Schjeldahl's Fireworks

Schjeldahl Potluck 2009. Photo by Richard McCabe.

During the 4th of July weekend of this year, the Ogden's chief preparator, Richard McCabe, and I travelled to New York to return works from previous exhibitions of Hunt Slonem and Margaret Evangeline. As luck would have it, the final delivery of Evangeline's work to the Catskills was scheduled to coincide with Peter Schjeldahl's private Independence Day celebration and fireworks display. In their turn-of-the-century farmhouse located just a few miles from the celebration, artists Ruth Hardinger and C. Michael Norton were gracious hosts for the night to a small group including Margaret Evangeline, art critic Dominique Nahas, Susan Smith, Richard and myself, among others.

Schjeldahl's Driveway 2009. Photo by Richard McCabe.



Susan Smith 2009. Photo by Richard McCabe.


Ruth Hardinger 2009. Photo by Richard McCabe.

Currently head art critic at The New Yorker, for nearly 45 years, Schjeldahl has written art criticism in New York. He is also a contemporary postmodern poet in the tradition of the New York School. In a 2006 questionnaire published in Frieze Magazine, Schjeldahl was asked, "What could you imagine doing if you didn't do what you do?". His answer was pyrotechnician. For over twenty years, he has staged his fireworks performance in the Catskills, an event that he aptly describes as "terror and delight."


Peter Schjeldahl 2009. Photo by Richard McCabe.

Kendall Shaw: Let There Be Light

Photo by David Houston


The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is proud to announce the publication of Kendall Shaw: Let There Be Light. This catalogue documents the exhibition of the same name, curated by David Houston and featured at the Ogden Museum from January through April of 2007. The exhibition was then travelled to the Ruskin Gallery at Cambridge School of Art in England in the fall of the same year. Including a foreward by J. Richard Gruber, Ph.D, and essays by David Houston, Martica Sawin, and Bruce Russell, this handsome hard-bound volume is a fine critical document and tribute to the work of New Orleans native, Kendall Shaw. With over thirty full-color plates of paintings from the 1950s to 2006, the catalogue also contains installation shots from both venues, showing not only content but context.


Circular Continuity, 1966, Kendall Shaw.
Acrylic on canvas 72" x 72".
Collection of the artist.

Kendall Shaw: Let There Be Light is available for purchase (while supplies last) in the museum store. Plans are in the works for an artist's talk and book signing.


Giorno installed at Ruskin Gallery.
Photo by Arlington Weithers.

Artist's Studio: Richard Jolley

Richard Jolley's Studio, 2009 by Richard McCabe

In June of 2004, the Ogden Museum hosted its first nationally travelling exhibition, Richard Jolley: Sculptor of Glass. Co-curated by the Ogden's Director, J. Richard Gruber, working with Stephen Wicks, of the Knoxville Museum of Art, the exhibition debuted at the Knoxville Museum of Art before beginning a national tour. The travelling exhibition featured works by the artist from 1984 through 2002, and was accompanied by a catalogue featuring a comprehensive essay by Dr. Gruber. In its Ogden incarnation, Dr. Gruber and the artist incorporated works made after 2002, showing his response to the exhibition.

Jolley at the Kiln, 2009 by Richard McCabe

In June of 2009, the Ogden's Richard McCabe and Bradley Sumrall were treated to a tour of the West Knoxville studio that Jolley has worked in since 1975, catching a glimpse of the new direction this ever-changing artist is taking his work. Set off the highway in a thicket of woods, the studio was filled with activity.

Hand-built Holding Furnaces, 2009 by Richard McCabe

"What I am trying to do is achieve a humanistic art."

Studio Assistant James Breed, 2009 by Richard McCabe

The new forms in Jolley's work are still heavily inspired by classical human forms. One sees a direct relation to his series Busts (1990-1994), Torsos (1994-1996) and Totems (1996-2001), yet the forms are fresh, minimalist, and both contemporary and deeply connected to his Pop Art roots.

Kenneth Gonzales, James Breed and Raul Garcia, 2009 by Richard McCabe

"Jolley views himself as an artist who works in glass, not as a 'glass artist.' For him, the distinction is a critical one," Dr. Gruber wrote in 2002. In 2009, we see that Jolley still holds that belief, and continues to push the boundaries of his medium.

Yee-Haw

©2008 YEE-HAW INDUSTRIAL LETTERPRESS

On Thursday, June 18, the Ogden's Bradley Sumrall and Richard McCabe visited Yee-Haw Industries in Knoxville, Tennessee. Started in 1996 in a Corbin, Kentucky barn by partners Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, Yee-Haw is an industrial letterpress and design company now located in a turn-of-the-century Gay Street building in downtown Knoxville. The over-stuffed studio is covered floor to ceiling with examples of their posters, prints, and broadsheets, filled with cards, t-shirts, and some of the funkiest collectibles to be found.

Yee Window and Haw Window, 2009 by Richard McCabe.

The letterpress barn in Corbin was started by Julie and Kevin with antique printing equipment saved from a rusty future, and used to create folk art woodblock prints of country music icons like Hank Williams (last seen alive feet from their current location) and Loretta Lynn, handmade posters of Southern subculture heroes like Cas Walker and Colonel Harlan Sanders. The work turned heads, and before long, the press was commissioned to create album art and promotional posters for contemporary artists including Steve Earle, Buddy Guy, Lucinda Williams and Southern Culture on the Skids.

Yee-Haw Interior, 2009 by Richard McCabe

All Yee-Haw prints are hand-set with original or vintage hand-carved wood blocks and type. Some of the earliest letter blocks date from the early eighteenth century. One vintage cabinet in the studio contains the history of Southern pro-wrestling in printer's photo plates. Drying racks are filled with inked paper at various stages of each color's eight-hour drying schedule. This is a real press in high production, full of activity and creativity.

Kevin Bradley in Studio, 2009 by Richard McCabe

Principal Julie Belcher, hailing from Morgantown, West Virginia, is the force behind building the brand. First introduced to the art world when her high school sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts to fund a trip to New York City, Julie went on to serve as art director and designer for Whittle Communications, Seventeen and Blue Note Records. Principal Kevin Bradley studied painting and graphic design before developing the unique Yee-Haw style. Julie lectures at institutions both academic and commercial. Kevin carves most of the original artwork produced by Yee-Haw.

Intern Christian Cox, 2009 by Richard McCabe

Recent Yee-Haw collaborators include Mississippi artist Sean Star Wars, Brooklyn's Cannonball Press, and Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art where they designed and produced a unique line of Dada merchandise for their 2006 Dada exhibition. Yee-Haw was recently commissioned by Jim Flora Art to produce limited edition prints from Flora's original blocks. Flora was an acclaimed and prolific illustrator and designer, best known for his album covers of the 40s and 50s. Of working with this material, Kevin Bradley says, " For us, it's like playing golf with Tiger Woods."

Printing Blocks, 2009 by Richard McCabe

For more on Yee-Haw, visit http://www.yeehawindustries.com/ .

Photographs @ Watercolor

South Miami Beach, 1982-1985. Photograph by Gay Block.

On Friday, June 19, the Ogden Museum @ Watercolor will open Picturing the South: People, Land, Architecture, Cities. Composed from the Ogden's photography collection, this exhibition includes photographs from 1934 to the present. A wide range of processes and styles attempt to represent the South's people and places, from the shrub brushed beaches of northwestern Florida to the dusty fields of the Mississippi Delta, from the color of South Miami's Jewish community to the texture of New Orlean's Vieux Carre at Carnival.

The Ogden's chief preparator, Richard McCabe and I are installing the exhibition in Watercolor before delivering the works of Mississippi artist, William Dunlap, to Banner Elk, North Carolina. After that we are on to the studio of Knoxville's Richard Jolley. Hopefully, along the way we'll record some truly Southern images and experiences to share here at Verso. Below is a view from the Watercolor Inn this afternoon.


Photograph by Bradley Sumrall, 2009.

Walter Anderson's Wedding Gift

Shearwater Vase by Walter Inglis Anderson circa 1927

Collection of the Dusti Bonge Foundation
Photo by Richard McCabe

Walter Anderson (1903 - 1965) met Archie Bonge (1901 - 1936) while attending the Pennsylvania Acadamy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1928. Archie, a 6'7" cowboy from Nebraska, spent a single semester at the acadamy before moving to New York. There, he found some success as a painter (selling a nude for $1000) and fell in love with Dusti Swetman, a young actress from Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1927, Archie and Dusti were married. Walter Anderson was the best man at their wedding, wearing a suit and tie with sneakers. The Shearwater vase pictured above was created by Walter and given as a wedding gift to the young couple.

Archie and Dusti had one child, Lyle, in 1929, ending Dusti's theatre and film career. The couple moved to a cottage in Biloxi in 1934. Walter Anderson married his wife, Sissy, in 1933, and the two couples were close friends in those years. Archie died suddenly in 1936. Walter entered the mental hospital for the first time in 1937. After the death of her husband, Dusti began painting with his brushes, becoming Mississippi's first true modernist, exhibiting her work alongside the leading Abstract Expressionist painters of the 50s at the important Betty Parson's Gallery in New York.

Untitled oil on canvas by Dusti Bonge, 1938

Collection of Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Gift of the Dusti Bonge Foundation

The wedding vase is currently on display at the Ogden, along with 17 Walter Anderson watercolors from the collection of Wesley and Norman Galen. Also, Dusti Bonge's untitled 1938 abstract oil on canvas (pictured above) is on display on the 4th floor. For more on Walter Anderson and Shearwater pottery, read Dreaming in Clay on the Coast of Mississippi: Love and Art at Shearwater and Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson, both by Chistopher Maurer, available in the Museum Store.

New Arrival: Edward Rice

Dormer with Missing Sash, New Orleans 2004-2005

Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Edward Rice has donated this 2005 painting, Dormer with Missing Sash, New Orleans, to the Ogden Museum in memory of James R. "Jim" Gruber, father to our director, J. Richard Gruber. This is the third painting by Rice in the collection, and the second in this style. Based in Augusta, South Carolina, for the last three decades, Rice has used the vernacular architecture of the South as subject, not exclusively, but consistently. In Edward Rice: Recent Monotypes, David Houston writes of Rice's architectural paintings: "Rice's subtle illumination of his subjects made of them something that is both lyrical and literary. Painted on-site, these radient works resulted from a slow, precise, and complex process through which a sense of place, a season, and a time of day were captured in the accretion of telling detail. Viewed retrospectively, it seemed obvious that the element of time is critical to the success of these works from both the artist's and the viewer's separate perspectives. Rice's own understanding of time places his perceptions and the physicality of the canvas in a phenomenological stasis that represents meditation." This is a fine addition to the Ogden's permanent collection, and a fitting companion to Gable Window, 2000, Rice's earlier donation in honor of his mentor, Freeman Schoolcraft, and his wife, artist Cora Schoolcraft.

Gable Window, 1999-2000

Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Mario Petrirena

As part of our exhibition of works from the permenant collection on the fourth floor of Goldring Hall, Mario Petrirena's All Saints is currently on display. I first encountered Mario's work at the CAC during David Houston's temporary position as Curator at both the Ogden and the CAC. Immediately, I was intrigued by his intuitive assemblages, collages, installations and ceramics. The fascination has never left me.

Born in Cuba in 1953, Mario emigrated to America at 8, seperated from his his parents for months while they arranged to join him in the States. He now lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Much of his work deals with that seperation and his bifurcated identity.

Mario cites many artists as influences on his work, from Picasso and Velazquez, from the inner driven works of Kahlo to the process driven works of Anna Mendieta. Regionally, it was the art pottery of George Ohr of which Mario has said "shook me to the core." Fittingly, a small collection of Ohr's pottery (the Mad Potter of Biloxi) is on view just steps away from Mario's unglazed white earthenware All Saints.

For more on Mario Petrirena and his work, visit: http://www.mariopetrirena.com/.

Also, the gift shop at the Ogden carries the catalogue, Mario Petrirena, Conversations: Past and Present (including the essay Speak(Again)Memory, by David Houston).

Black and white images of Mario Petrirena by David Houston.

All Saints 1997 by Mario Petrirena.

The Known World, 2005 from the cover of Mario Petrirena, Conversations: Past Present and Future.

Jose Torres Tama

Jose Torres Tama is multi-disciplinary artist based in New Orleans Louisiana. The Ogden is proud to have several of his works on paper in the permanent collection. Currently, a catalogue documenting his exhibition New Orleans' Free People of Color & Their Legacy is under construction through the Ogden for release this summer. It will include images of his pastel portraits of New Orleans' les gens de couleur libres, considered the first multiracial people in the United States, borne of a mixing between the African, French, Spanish, and native races of Louisiana. The text, written by Keith Weldon Medley, explains the accomplishments of the Free People of Color to the development of New Orleans and the nation.

Jose Torres Tama is currently touring the United Kingdom with two original performance works, The Cone of Uncertainty and Lower 9th Ward Ritual of Mourning. The Cone of Uncertainty debuted in London on Friday, May 8, as part of Tama's residency at Roehampton University. Jose and his work have found a rapt audience in London, and Jose has taken to signing his emails "El Juan Bond from her Majesty's Secret Salsa Service with a license to transport subversive performances across international waters."

For more details and a schedule of performances, visit http://www.torrestama.com/.

Top: Ode to Edmund Dede, 2002, Collection of Ogden Museum.

Bottom: Jose Performs in Goldring Hall, 2008. Photo by David Houston.

Meaders Face Jug

Returning to the Ogden's 4th floor craft cabinet this week is Lanier Meaders' Face Jug. The Meaders family has been producing pottery in Mossy Creek, Georgia since 1893 using locally dug clays, kick-wheels, and home made glazes. There are several theories about the origin of the face jug. One theory is that moonshine was stored in them to scare the grandchildren away from the sauce. Although much moonshine was surely stored in face jugs throughout northern Georgia and western Carolina, the more plausible origin of the face jug can be garnered from that area's African-American oral history. Slaves from West Africa brought with them a form of ancestor worship or reverence. When the dead were buried, personal belongings and ancestral totems were placed upon the grave. The conversion of the these slaves to Christianity and a belief in the devil transformed these objects into devil-faced vessels. The two schools of thought on the reason for the devil face are 1.) the face was meant to scare the devil away and 2.) the vessel was placed on the grave for one year, during which time a break in the jug meant that the deceased was wrestling with the devil. Lanier Meaders was mystified by the popularity of his face jugs. Of the people who purchased them he said, "They must be half-crazy to begin with."

Ambassador Pierre Vimont

Chief Curator, David Houston, explains the relevance of Lulu King Saxon's 1890 painting, Uptown Street to French Ambassador Pierre Vimont (red tie) and French Consul General Olivier Brochenin (far left) during a visit to the Ogden Museum in March. A landscape painter, writer, poet, actress, singer and musician, Lulu Saxon King was born in Louisiana around 1855. She travelled and painted in Russia prior to the first World War, and died in New Orleans in 1927. Painted in 1890 and measuring almost eight feet high, Uptown Street is not only the oldest, but one of the largest paintings currently on display. The Uptown street depicted is most likely Magazine Street in New Orleans. The subject closely resembles roads entering rural villages of Europe popularized by French Impressionist painters of the 1870s and 1880s. It is rendered in an atmospheric mood reminiscent of French landscape painting. Painted in a style descended from Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, the Barbizon School and Impressionism, Uptown Street exemplifies the lasting influence of Europe on the art of the South.

Ponderosa Stomp Presents Bobby Rush

Photo by Cheryl Gerber

The legendary Soul Blues singer, Bobby Rush, played Ogden After Hours on Thursday, April 23. Born the son of a preacher man in Homer, Louisiana,1940, Bobby Rush moved to Chicago at an early age. In the 50s, he played in Chicago bands with Freddie King, Earl Hooker, and Luther Allison. Trips to visit family in Arkansas found him on stage with the great Elemore James.






In 1971, Rush had a hit with the Galaxy single "Chicken Heads," and he spent the next decade travelling the "chitlin' circuit" from west Texas to Florida to Chicago, and back. In the 80s, he settled down in Jackson, Mississippi, signed to a number of labels, settling into Malaco Records.




Photo by Cheryl Gerber

In 2003, Bobby Rush fulfilled his dream of owning his own label, Deep Rush. After more than fifty years on the stage, he shows no signs of slowing down. He has found new enthusiastic audiences in New York, Europe and Asia, and still plays to working class audiences in packed juke joints on the chitlin' circuit. Thanks to the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation for bringing Bobby Rush to the Ogden Museum.

Rare Images of Pops and Hamp

On Thursday, April 23, 2009, the Ogden Museum opened the exhibition Timex All-Star Jazz Show 1958: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic. Jerry Dantzic was one of three photographers hired to document the rehearsal of this rare collaboration between New Orleans native, Louis Armstrong, and Kentucky native, Lionel Hampton. Using a few Leica M3s, Dantzic captured both the energy of musical performance and the intimate moments between these legendary artists.

More widely known for his pioneering color panoramic work that led to two Guggenheim Fellowships and a 1978 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this work positions Dantzic in the context of the great jazz photographers of the 50s. In 1999, Jerry's son, Grayson, became archivist for the Jerry Dantzic Archives. Grayson found the negatives and contact sheets for this shoot hidden away in his father's studio. Some of these images have never before been printed . Besides Pops and Hamp, there are great images of Gerry Mulligan, Gene Krupa, George Shearing, Jaye P. Morgan, and the Dukes of Dixieland, to name a few. Grayson, also the archivist at Atlantic Records, worked with Ogden Museum curator David Houston to organize this exhibition, up through July 19, 2009.

For more on Jerry Dantzic and the exhibition: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=30510. Top photo Louis Armstrong, Timex Jazz Show #2, Rehearsal, 4/30/1958 by Jerry Dantzic, Copyright (c) 2009 JERRY DANTZIC ARCHIVES, All Rights Reserved. Bottom: Grayson Dantzic and his mother, artist Cynthia Dantzic. Photo by Cheryl Gerber.

Jeffrey Cook (1961 - 2009)

New Orleans lost one of her favorite sons this week. Jeffrey Cook, artist/dancer/educator, was found dead in his home on April 7. He was 48.

Born and raised in Central City, Jeffrey studied at Xavier University and San Francisco Art Institute before becoming a professional dancer. At Xavier, legendary New Orleans sculptor John Scott served as both professor and mentor to Jeffrey, teaching him that the best ideas and subject matter come from the city streets. After receiving an MFA from SFAI, encouraged by his friend Shaun Early, he auditioned for and earned the position of Principle Dancer with the Los Angeles Repertory Company, a position that allowed him to perform in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Hong Kong and Scandinavia, as well as several major stateside cities. His dance career also included a stint as a Solid Gold dancer, and a brief role in the 1984 film Breakin'.

Upon his return to New Orleans, he established a studio in a renovation located in the neighborhood of his youth, Central City. It was here that he created a series of painted and collaged work that leapt off the wall and referenced the patinas and architecture of his environment. Works such as Making of a Melody incorporate found objects, signs, and handmade dolls to comment on the social and physical neglect of a community, combined with a nostalgia for the neighborhood's former glory and hope for the future.

In 2002, the Ogden Museum began a new educational program, Artists and Sense of Place, which places artists in month-long residencies in public schools. The purpose of the project is to show students how to explore a sense of place through art. Jeffrey was placed as artist-in-residence with Guste Elementary. The theme was Magic in our Neighborhood. Jeffrey photographed abandoned buildings and fences in Central City, made copies for the students, and taught them to make these images beautiful through art. See the entire project here: http://www.ogdenmuseum.org/education/magic.pdf. He went on to participate in four sessions of Artists and Sense of Place, as well as other educational programs at the Ogden.

When the Ogden Museum was preparing to open Goldring Hall to the public, Jeffrey was part of that crew. The very first nail that supported the first painting was hammered into the wall by Roger Ogden and Jeffrey Cook. Today, as we were hanging Making of a Melody on the fourth floor Goldring Hall, one of the many cardboard boxes opened to reveal an envelope no one had seen before. It contained ephemera from the Ogden's Grand Opening celebration (where Jeffrey performed a dance choreographed specifically for the event) including a slice of the symbolic red ribbon. It was so like him to hide our own history in a work about his personal history and sense of place. Jeffrey Cook was a great friend to the Ogden Museum, and he will be missed by all.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2009, a memorial service for Jeffrey will be held for the art community at Ashe' Cultural Arts Center from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. On Wednesday, April 15, 2009, services will be held at Ashe'. A viewing will take place from 9 a.m. till 11 a.m. followed by a memorial service.

Michael Meads

Alabama-born New Orleans artist, Michael Meads, is featured in a new exhibition at New York's ClampArt, aptly titled Kids Behaving Badly, where he shares the walls with Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and Mark Morrisroe, among others. Michael is a great supporter of the Ogden and our mission. Due to a recent donation of Michael's paintings, drawings, and photographs, the Ogden now holds the complete Eastaboga series, as well as a sampling of every phase of his career from his very first snapshots to his large detailed drawings set in the French Quarter.

Check out Rafael Soldi's blog review of the ClampArt show at http://rafaelsoldi.blogspot.com/2009/04/kids-behaving-badly-at-clampart.html.

Top photo of Michael Meads at Rue de la Course in New Orleans by David Houston.

Below: Nicky at Salt Creek, 1993 by Michael Meads.

Nene Humphrey

The Benny Andrews Foundation Gallery, on the fourth floor of the Ogden's Goldring Hall, is a space dedicated to the exhibition of works by Benny Andrews, his late father George Andrews (the Dot Man), and his wife, Nene Humphrey. Currently on display are works by Nene Humphrey as chosen from the Ogden's collection by Collections Manager, Bradley Sumrall.


Nene Humphrey’s work is concerned with the body, as well as issues of domesticity and the female identified world. Born in rural Wisconsin in 1947, Nene grew up in an environment that placed great value on labor and women’s hand-work. Raised Roman Catholic, she was greatly influenced by the church’s symbolism and body imagery. This background enabled her to create a body of work both firmly rooted in the craft traditions passed from mother to daughter, and in a post-minimalist tradition of using process and material as metaphor in a simple, pure aesthetic.


The human hand is central to Humphrey’s symbolism, being both portrait and tool. The hand is the vehicle through which we experience the world, feed ourselves and our loved ones, and create. Even when the hand is not used as the primary symbol, it is inferred through the process of traditional hand-work. The spoon, another major theme in Humphrey’s work, is simply an extension of the hand, used to provide sustenance.



To learn more about this Nene and her work, visit her website, www.nenehumphrey.com.
To see her most recent work, visit http://www.lesleyheller.com/artists/nene_humphrey/index.html.
Photos by Richard McCabe.