Contact: Joseph White 504.280.6622/504.283.9388 home [email protected]
03/08/2001
Art World To Rediscover Southern Art; The Ogden Museum to Feature Fine Art; new five story building and a historic library, built in 1888, to house museum. The entire museum will exceed 67,000 square feet of space for exhibiting the permanent collections (paintings, sculpture, mixed media, photographs, and prints) and for housing educational classrooms, archives, traveling exhibits, and a center for the study of Southern arts and culture--the museum's scholarly research library; to open in October.
(New Orleans)-"Southern art is not only just being discovered, it's about to become chic," notes Dr. Elizabeth Broun, Director of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. She says Southern art "personalizes something that is authentic and fulfills our longing for the personal, the hand-crafted, and speaks to our most comforting and fulfilling experiences." Broun feels that the creation of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art is most timely, as regional art is becoming more and more appreciated.
Roger Ogden, a native Louisianan, businessman, and philanthropist, has donated his collection, ranging from 18th century watercolors to 19th and 20th century paintings, as well as prints, ceramics, photographs, and sculptures, which includes 1200 works by 400 artists from 16 Southern states. By the early 1990s, Ogden's collection was recognized by art historians and collectors as the single most important collection of Southern art in the world. No other collection of Southern art equals it in scope or breadth.
Through a partnership between Roger Ogden and the University of New Orleans, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art will open in October.
"The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is destined to have a national presence as a major, national, cultural and academic resource devoted to the South similar in many ways to what the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art has become for American art," declares Roger Ogden.
Other collectors have become interested in donating their collections. The Andrews-Humphrey Foundation, for example, has formed a partnership with the museum to allow the artists, Benny Andrews and Nene Humphrey, to donate their art and their time for educational and outreach programs in New Orleans. New Orleans collector of local art, Michael Brown, is contributing a substantial portion of his personal collection, as is North Carolinian Janet Stevens McDowell, who has made a gift of 378 works by her late father, Will Henry Stevens, a pioneer in modernist art in New Orleans and an influential professor of the Newcomb Art School from 1921 to 1948. The Stevens collection, now valued at $4.5 million, is a significant addition to the Ogden Museum holdings. The number of contributors, from collectors to artists, continues to grow as public awareness of the undertaking increases.
Louise Keith Claussen, Director of the Morris Museum, the first museum in the country devoted to Southern art (opened in '92) comments, "I suspect that the Ogden Museum, given it's university association and its location in a prime area for cultural tourism, will get an even stronger response than we have had." She adds, "If the experience of the Morris Museum of Art is any gauge, then the impact of the Ogden Museum will be quite significant. From the day we opened, we found both an eager audience for Southern art and a hunger for information on the art and artists of the South."
"Twenty years ago, American museums often believed themselves to be miniature versions of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in NY) with its vast encyclopedic collections. Times have really changed. We now realize that the distinct character of a museum's regional collections, both historic and contemporary, establishes an institution's unique personality," notes Nannette V. Maciejunes, Senior Curator and Director of Collections and Exhibitions of the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. She adds, "The history of American art is transformed by the inclusion of regional art in museum collections. Each region makes a distinct contribution to the texture of our national art. To our detriment, we have ignored regionalism for years. What is happening with the Ogden Museum is exciting on a national level."
While other aspects of Southern culture have been recognized, even celebrated--Southern literature, music from jazz and blues to zydeco--visual art has not. The main goals of the museum are the collection, exhibition, and education relative to the visual arts in the American South.
In order to accommodate the size of the collection and to display the collection in the best possible manner, a new, five-story building (to feature art from the 20th and 21st century) is being constructed as close to the Taylor Library as possible. The Taylor Library will house the other works. It is a Romanesque structure building, built in 1888, that is on the National Register of Historic Places. A tunnel gallery will connect the buildings. The entire museum will exceed 67,000 square feet of space for exhibiting the permanent collections (paintings, sculpture, mixed media, photographs, and prints) and for housing educational classrooms, archives, traveling exhibits, and a center for the study of Southern arts and culture--the museum's scholarly research library. Both buildings are located in the New Orleans' "Arts District, adjacent to the National D-Day Museum, and directly across the street from the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.
The information above is contained in an article from the University of New Orleans upcoming Quest magazine, a university publication highlighting research, technology and scholarly activity. For a copy of the magazine, contact information of researchers or other information, e- mail Joseph White at [email protected] or call at 504/280.6622.
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