Tales From Denise James: New Orleans

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is a gem of a museum and one where you are sure to find something of interest. My visit was a bonanza with a look at Self-Taught, Outsider and Visionary Art from the Permanent Collection on the top floor (hurry this exhibit is gone after July 21!) and then one floor down my eyes were opened to the works of William R. Hollingsworth, Jr — an illustrator and painter. Hollingsworth was a Mississippi artist who was born in 1910 and began drawing and painting in high school and continued on very successfully, even winning national awards and recognition. Despite being a successful artist, husband and father, sadly, Hollingsworth ended his life at the age of 34. [To learn more, read here.] Though the exhibit is now gone, here are some of the works that I was drawn to...this first one perhaps the most poignant for me — Hollingsworth's son, Billy and his fox terrier, Boy.

An illustration---sort of Rockwell-esque, isn't it?

His self-portrait

The Music Box 1942
Hollingsworth did this watercolor in exchange for new records from the music store!

Landscape # 35 March 1944
Painted toward the end of his short life.

Uncharacteristically of his time, Hollingsworth painted and drew "the daily life of local black people" in his native Mississippi. He was the subject of a book authored by Eudora Welty and coincidentally (or not), the Ogden had an exhibit of Eudora Welty's photographs. Who knew this famous writer was a photographer? Not me.

The multi-talented Eudora Welty

Carrying Home the Ice 1936

Mardi Gras, New Orleans c 1930s

In my neck of the woods, it's become popular to have a "bottle tree" in your yard. They really are quite beautiful, bare branches capped with blue, green, brown or amber bottles that glisten in the sun. It wasn't until I saw this photo of Welty's that I learned these decorative trees came from the past.

A House with Bottle Trees 1941

And finally, in this glorious museum in Nawh'lins, there was a delightful tribute to the commitment the Ogden has to educational outreach and the work introducing kindergarteners to artistically "translating" the books they've read. From the exhibit, I wanted you to see their interpretation of The Room of Wonders — particularly inspiring to someone like me...