A World of Art: From ancient times to Disney
Founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park is a treasure trove of more than 30,000 art objects encompassing 4,000 years of world art. Free to Louisiana residents, NOMA ranks in the top 100 of the nation’s largest and most important museums. The collection is noted especially for its strengths in French, American, African, and Japanese art, as well as photography and glass. The adjacent five-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden featuring works by 59 artists, including several of the 20th century’s great master sculptors, opened in 2003. It is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States.
For nearly 100 years, NOMA has been a gathering place for all those seeking to learn from the beauty of its extraordinary collection of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing temporary exhibitions, are on view in the museum’s 46 galleries. An annual spring time celebration at NOMA is Art in Bloom, a five-day event which showcases over 100 exhibitors of creative floral designs, sculpture, and scenes. The annual Patron Party is one of the spring’s premier social events in New Orleans (1,200 guests attended the 2009 soirée). The annual Odyssey Ball, held in November, is the major social event of the cultural season in New Orleans. This year, it will feature the first viewing of the upcoming major Disney exhibition Dreams Come True, which launches the museum’s year-long Centennial Celebration.
NOMA recently presented French paintings in the highly successful blockbuster Femme Femme Femme: Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to Picasso from the Museums of France. The majority of these paintings were executed by male artists. Conversely, NOMA and The Historic New Orleans Collection present Women Artists in Louisiana, 1825-1965: A Place of Their Own. The majority of these paintings were executed by female artists. The exhibition runs through September 13 and is the first in a two-part series at NOMA. Part one of the series features paintings, sculpture, Newcomb pottery, photographs, and metalwork by artists who visited or resided in Louisiana from the late 19th century through the mid-1960s. Part two, opening in April 2010, will feature artworks from 1965 to the present.
A major exhibition which runs through October 11 at NOMA is The Art of Caring: A Look at Life through Photography featuring more than 200 works that explore the moments that shape our lives. Renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz sets the tone with a preface compromised of images hand-picked form her archive to illustrate the exhibition’s seven themes: children and family, love, wellness, disaster, care-giving and healing, aging, and remembering.
Several works from the Time & LIFE Pictures are showcased in the exhibition, in addition to works by contemporary photographers. A series of corresponding HBO films will further illustrate the seven themes, including Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke.” The permanent collection of photography at NOMA, which is also worth viewing, is considered to be the finest in the Southeast, with more than 7,000 vintage and contemporary photographs offering an encyclopedic survey of the entire history of the medium. An outstanding year for the growth of NOMA’s permanent collection, 2008 had major acquisitions in nearly all areas including photography.
“Eighty of our most precious masterworks are retuning in June,” says director of communications Jim Mulvihill. “They have been gone since before Katrina and have been touring. It will be a happy homecoming,” he says. Those visiting NOMA in May and June will also be able to experience the finale of Evening in Paris: NOMA Celebrates the City of Light with Posters and Photographs from the Permanent Collection through June 28. Also of interest in June is The Mind’s Eye: Without Subject Matter, What Does the Artist See? The new exhibition, which runs through October 11, features abstract prints and drawings and comprises more than 100 works by artists including Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, and Andy Warhol. These pieces have been selected form the museum’s holdings of more than 7,000 works on paper.
“Many members of the public even today are finding abstract art to be mysterious and not easy to understand or appreciate,” says George Roland, curator of prints and drawings. “This exhibition explores the ways artists respond to the challenge of making abstract art.” The exhibit will be accompanied by quotes from the artists as well as their critics and commentators.
NOMA’s 2010 Centennial Celebration kicks off with a major Disney exhibition in November. It is the only North American venue for Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio, held November 15, 2009-March 14, 2010. “We are delighted to present this magical exhibition in New Orleans,” says NOMA director John Bullard. “Children will love seeing their favorite Disney characters in a museum setting and adults will be taken by the technical skill and emotional depth reflected in these works. It was Disney animators who really led the way in the 20th century toward establishing animation as a serious art form.”
More than 600 original artworks that shaped legendary animated features including Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast will be on view. The exhibition will also include the artwork form the upcoming Walt Disney Animation Studios musical, The Princess and the Frog, an animated comedy set in New Orleans and due for release at Christmas 2009. The film features the free-spirited, jazz-loving Prince Naveen of Maldonia who gets turned into a frog by a shaky voodoo doctor. He travels with a beautiful girl, Tiana, through the mystical bayous of Louisiana, returning in time for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Visitors to the Disney exhibition will encounter themed rooms showcasing artwork related to specific animated features. Film clips will accompany the artwork to demonstrate how individual sketches and paintings lead to a finished celluloid masterpiece. An adjacent educational area will highlight Disney’s long association with music and also will serve as a mini library for animation research and storytelling programs.
The first viewing of Dreams Come True will be at NOMA’s annual Odyssey Ball, the opulent fundraiser gala to be held Saturday, November 14. For information on tickets to the ball, contact the NOMA volunteer committee at (504) 658-4141. ✦
