Object Lesson: Lola Alvarez Bravo
Lola Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993) stands outs as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century, whose work remains regrettably underappreciated around the world. Read More
Object Lessons
Katherine Choy, Radical Potter in 1950s New Orleans
In the early 1950s in New Orleans, Katherine Choy was one of the very first American ceramicists to bridge Asian clay traditions into emergent abstract Modern art. During her fervent short career, Choy quietly subverted ceramic traditions, drew wide acclaim through national art exhibitions, and then died too young at age 30. Read More
Object Lesson: Mother and Child in the Conservatory by Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt was one of the most prominent artists of her time. Born in Philadelphia, she spent most of her adult life living in France, where she became one of the few Americans—and only women—to become closely allied with the then vanguard Impressionist movement in Paris. Read More
Object Lesson: Demonstration of the Talbotype by Thomas Augustine Malone
Malone’s demonstration piece, believed to be one of a kind, then, is a strange but wonderfully conceptual work from early photography. As a photograph that consists of nothing but the word “Talbotype,” this work gives us photography twice over—that is, in word and in image. Read More
Mardi Gras designs by Bror Anders Wikstrom
Bror Anders Wikstrom made a name for himself in New Orleans by engaging with the heart of the city’s creative culture: Mardi Gras. Read More
Arts and Letters combine in expressive works found in NOMA’s collection
At the New Orleans Museum of Art, the writing is literally on the wall, not only in descriptive labels for works on view but also in a select paintings and sculpture that feature written communication. Read more about five examples. Read More
Object Lesson: Rabbit Pounding the Elixir of Life Under the Moon by Mori Ippo
Rising above a minimal landscape of reeds and clouds, a rabbit is silhouetted against the moon, busy at work using a mortar and pestle. In Japanese folklore, a mystical hare who inhabits the moon mashes ingredients for mochi, a traditional rice-flour cake. Japanese artist Mori Ippo (1798–1871) used ink and light color on silk to create… Read More
Object Lesson: North Polar Stars by Maynard Walker
Maynard Walker’s photograph of North Polar Stars seems to trace the path of the stars through the night sky over a long period of time. What it actually records, of course, is our own planet earth spinning through space and time. Read More
Object Lesson: Apollo and the Muses by Maerten van Heemskerck
By the 1540s the theme of Apollo and the Muses, established during the sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance, had made its way to northern Europe where Maerten van Heemskerck seems to have been one of its champions. Heemskerck was one of the first Dutch painters to travel to Italy for art studies after which he devoted his… Read More
Object Lesson: Mother and Child by Elizabeth Catlett
[Update, February 2023: Following the installation of Elizabeth Catlett’s Woman and Child in NOMA’s Great Hall, the sculpture is on view in the George l. Viavant Gallery on the museum’s second floor.] When artist and activist Elizabeth Catlett lived in New Orleans in the early 1940s, much of the city was racially segregated, including City… Read More
Object Lesson: Corning “Lens” Bowl
An unadorned glass bowl displayed in NOMA’s decorative arts galleries was made in 1932 directly from the factory mold of a Corning Glass Company locomotive-headlight lens. The “Lens” Bowl is part of the important Modern design movement that openly paid tribute to new materials and thoughtful industrial production. Read More
Object Lesson: Sketch for Several Circles by Wassily Kandinsky
From 1923 through 1929 the circle was the single motif which Wassily Kandinsky explored exhaustively in ten major paintings. Sketch for Several Circles is a study for Kandinsky’s large painting Several Circles, now in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Read More
Object Lesson: Hercules the Archer by Antoine Bourdelle
From 1900 to 1907, Antoine Bourdelle worked on the model for Hercules the Archer, which is considered his most famous work. In Roman mythology, Hercules is known for his strength and numerous far-ranging adventures, including a cycle known as the “Twelve Labors,” one of which is depicted in this sculpture. Read More
Object Lesson: Pommery Champagne Bottles, Reims by Ilse Bing
In 1933, as the company approached its 100-year anniversary, Pommery Champagne hired Ilse Bing to produce a series of photos documenting its production facilities in Reims, France. Even though she was ostensibly hired to sell more champagne Bing approached the job with the same creativity and avant-garde approach found in her personal work. Read More
Object Lesson: Adoration to the Christ Child and Annunciation to the Shepherds by Bernardino Luini
Bernardino Luini’s artistic style appears to have developed under various influences during the High Renaissance, but his greatest artistic debt is owed to Leonardo da Vinci. Read More
Object Lesson: Kitchen Wall in Bud Field’s Home, Hale County, Alabama by Walker Evans
In the summer of 1936, Walker Evans and James Agee, on assignment from Fortune magazine, set out to chronicle the daily lives of typical sharecropper families in the American South. In Hale County, Alabama, they found three families—including the Fields—with whom they lived for a month, with Evans photographing and Agee writing about their lives and environments, including this photograph from the family’s kitchen. Read More
Object Lesson: Articulated Figure of the Veracruz Culture
Smiling children with subtly rounded bodies are among the best-known types of clay figurines from the Veracruz area of Mexico. Skillfully made of thin-walled clay, the movable limbs are attached to the body by strings, a device which permits the arms and legs to move to different positions. Read More
Object Lesson: Lipizzaner by Tony Smith
The title of Tony Smith’s sculpture Lipizzaner is a reference to the white stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, because the complex surface of the modular forms in the work suggests a prancing horse. Read More