Not-to-Be-Missed Stops on Your Next Trip to New Orleans

Admission: $13.50 ($11 for adults 65 and older); purchase timed tickets online

Getting there: The museum is about 20 minutes from the airport.

Also consider weather: Summer visitors can expect to sweat, making this air-conditioned venue a great choice to escape the heat of the day.​

Accessibility: Fully accessible, with all levels reachable by elevator.

The stunning work of self-taught artists like Clementine Hunter

Discover additional talent as you wander through the Ogden’s other galleries. Much of what you’ll see falls into the category of vernacular art, meaning the work of self-taught artists. Their work provides plainspoken insight into the 20th century Black experience throughout the South.

Besides Andrews’ work, Sumrall recommends you not miss that of another artist featured in the museum. “I can’t imagine the Ogden Museum without the constant presence of Clementine Hunter,” he says.

Born in Louisiana in late 1886 or early 1887, Hunter lived for a century before her death in 1988. Her work is deeply evocative of the state and its values: connection to the land, family, cultural memory, faith, ritual, the value of a person’s labor. Whereas Andrews’ paintings have a broadly Southern perspective, Hunter’s incisively focus on Louisiana, taking you along its back roads and outside its churches. Long after you return home, the mere mention of her name will bring to mind vivid images of the state.

Her 1945 painting Panorama of Baptism on Cane River — painted on a window shade — exemplifies why she called her art “memory paintings.” It transports you to a baptism at St. Augustine Catholic Church on the Cane River, in Natchitoches Parish in central Louisiana. Parishioners dressed in their finest line the riverbank, the baptized are in the water, and a man rings a bell outside the church. It’s a scene Hunter surely witnessed numerous times.

Also seek out the paintings of Thornton Dial and Purvis Young, two other giants of 20th century vernacular art. Dial, an Alabama artist who died in 2016, was a master of mixed media. The expansive canvas Struggling Tiger in Hard Times — measuring 5 feet by almost 8 feet and incorporating oil, carpet, industrial sealing compound, rope and tin — thrashes and roars.

Unlike Hunter and Dial, Young didn’t live in a rural area, but rather in Miami, where he died in 2010. He energetically captures the city’s scene in Cityscape With Cars. Pay close attention to his frames, all of which he constructed himself with discarded materials given to him or that he found.

Beyond paintings

There’s more to see at the Ogden than paintings. Its other galleries delight with colorful ceramics, fabric pieces, historic and contemporary photographs, metalwork, ordinary objects found around households and neighborhoods fashioned into art objects, sculpture, woodworking and more.

Nearby

Le Musée de f.p.c.: This museum, in a Greek Revival house on picturesque Esplanade Avenue, honors the city’s long legacy of free people of color (f.p.c.): Black people born free or manumitted (released from slavery) before the Civil War. Roughly 18,000 lived in the city when the war began, one of the country’s largest and oldest such communities. The museum displays decorative arts, documents (including original manumission papers), paintings and photographs that “present, interpret and preserve the history” of this often-overlooked group. Due to COVID-19, the museum offers limited access. Call 504-323-5074 or visit its website for info and advance tickets.

New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA): Clementine Hunter’s art is also at NOMA, the city’s oldest fine arts institution. NOMA began collecting her work in the 1950s and hosted her first museum show in 1955, one of the country’s first solo shows for a female African American artist. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closes at 5 p.m. on Saturday (though they have extended hours through mid-July 2022 for the “Queen Nefertari’s Egypt exhibit”; check their website for details); tickets are $15, $10 for adults 65 and older, and can be purchased online or in person.

Algiers Folk Art Zone & Blues Museum: For something less institutional and more personal, venture to this small museum in the city’s Algiers Point district on the West Bank. Founded by self-taught Black artist Charles Gillam in 2000, this eclectic find showcases art by various Black folk artists as well as blues music history, including hand-carved and painted portraits by Gillam of blues legends such as Louis Armstrong and Memphis Minnie. Fun facts: Gillam’s father played guitar for Fats Domino, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., acquired Gillam’s depiction of Fats playing the piano on the roof of his flooded New Orleans studio in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Due to COVID-19, visits are currently by appointment only: 504-261-6231.

Where to dine

Locals count these two Black-owned hot spots among their favorite restaurants in a city famous for its dining scene.

Willie Mae’s Scotch House: The fried chicken draws crowds to this casual restaurant, a mainstay in the city for decades now run by the great-granddaughter of the original owner, Willie Mae Seaton. It won the James Beard Foundation America’s Classics Award in 2005, a coveted distinction given to restaurants that keep regional culinary traditions alive. Pick from two locations — one in the Tremé neighborhood between the French Quarter and NOMA, the other in the Pythian Market downtown.

Bywater American Bistro: Owner Nina Compton, winner of the 2018 James Beard Foundation Best Chef: South Award, serves up fine dining in a casual setting in the Bywater neighborhood, on the other side of the French Quarter from the Warehouse District. In-the-know locals come for the jerk chicken rice and the spaghetti pomodoro.

This article has been adapted from aarp.org. Click here for more information.