Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 49)

Opelousas offers a fine art experience Opelousas claims a rich history as “Louisiana’s Third Oldest City.” It has been home to the Attakapas Indians, a French trading post settled in 1720, a Spanish military post, and served as the capitol of Confederate Louisiana in 1862. Opelousas has been designated as the International Capital of Zydeco Music and, for the past decade, a cultural destination for fine art enthusiasts thanks to the Opelousas Museum of Art. The Opelousas Museum of Art (OMA) is housed in Wier House, a rare Southern example of classic Federal architecture, from the collection of the Louisiana State Museum. The museum has also borrowed exhibitions from the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, LSU Museum of Art, the Lafayette Natural History Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. With the generous organizational support of the Louisiana Division of the Arts, as administered by the Acadiana Arts Council, OMA has been able to establish a new position of tour coordinator. The rare birds, butterflies, ocelots and monkeys. OMA plans to recreate a room from one of Hunt Slonem’s Louisiana plantation properties, Albania, as part of this unconventional art installation and exhibition. Special tours by appointment are held at OMA in collaboration with Le Zinc Main Street Bar & Restaurant, featuring a “Viewer’s Choice Luncheon.” The museum’s changing exhibition schedule brings both fine art and visitors to downtown Opelousas and enhances culture in the St. Landry Parish area. left: Keith Guidry, curator for the Opelousas Museum of Art, installs Shirley Rabe Masinter’s New Orleans, Birthplace of Jazz (1984), among many works on loan from the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. below: Ocelots (1999), by Hunt Slonem, will be on view Oct. 4-Dec. 22, 2007 in a retrospective on this artist’s works. circa 1820s, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. OMA held its Inaugural Exhibition in 1998, honoring First Lady Alice Foster and E. John Bullard, Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Since that year OMA has had a succession of quality exhibitions such as William Hogarth, Engraver Extraordinaire; The Art of Clementine Hunter; Winslow Homer the Illustrator; Elemore Morgan, Jr. Paintings, Drawings and Sketches; the New York Show, showcasing successful Louisiana artists from New York galleries; and the landmark 2003 Bicentennial Exhibition The Birds of Louisiana by John James Audubon, loaned museum is now aided by Bertha Reed to guide St. Landry Parish school groups, area civic organizations and visiting travel groups through the museum. The museum will feature works by Tulane-educated artist Hunt Slonem in an exhibit titled A Colorful Nature from Oct. 4Dec. 22, 2007. One of the most renowned painters of exotic birds, Slonem’s fascinating work has been exhibited around the world at countless galleries and distinguished museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Since 1973, he has devoted his work to an ongoing exploration of exotic life forms, Opelousas Museum of Art 106 Union Street Opelousas, LA 70570 Hours: Tuesday-Friday 1-5 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. www.cityofopelousas.com/TOURISM_ artmuseum.htm (337) 942-4991 Fall 2007/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 49 http://www.cityofopelousas.com/TOURISM_artmuseum.htm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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