VOLUME XXXV The Historic New Orleans NUMBER 3 Collection Quarterly SUMMER 2018 Shop online at www.hnoc.org/shop CITY CENTERED: A Contemporary Take on the Tricentennial EVENT CALENDAR EXHIBITIONS & TOURS “CELEBRATING THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE” All exhibitions are free unless otherwise noted. In collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC, and the Consulate of Sweden in New Orleans, The Collection will present a recital featuring the repertoire of Jenny CURRENT Lind, the Swedish opera singer who was an international star in the 19th century. Featuring “Working for the Williamses” Tour soprano Kine Sandtrø and pianist Julia Sjöstedt, the program will feature arias from the operatic Tuesday–Sunday, June 1–30, 11 a.m. canon as well as Nordic folk music. 533 Royal Street Monday, June 18, 6–7 p.m. $5 admission; free for THNOC members Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street Free; reservations required. To register, visit www.hnoc.org or call (504) 598-7146. Preview of Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina presented by The Helis “CARING FOR YOUR COLLECTIONS” WORKSHOP Foundation THNOC staff will share their knowledge of working with and enjoying historical artifacts in this On view through fall 2018 morning workshop. Talks will address documentation, proper methods of handling and display, 533 Royal Street appropriate cleaning and storage techniques, and connoisseurship and acquisition. Free Saturday, June 23, 9:30 a.m.–noon Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street French Quarter Museum Association Free; reservations encouraged. To register, visit www.hnoc.org or call (504) 598-7146. Welcome Center Through December 2018 UPSTAIRS LOUNGE PANEL DISCUSSION 533 Royal Street Join us as we commemorate the 45th anniversary of the UpStairs Lounge fire, the unsolved hate Free; for more information, visit crime that claimed 32 lives in 1973. A panel of historians and witnesses will discuss the fire, the www.frenchquartermuseums.com. deadliest in New Orleans’s history, and explore how it shaped the LGBT+ community locally and nationally. The event will also feature a reading and book signing for Robert W. Fieseler’s new PERMANENT release, Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation. The program is presented in collaboration with the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. Louisiana History Galleries reopening June 29, 2018 Wednesday, June 27, 6–7 p.m. 533 Royal Street Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street Free; reservations required. To register, visit www.hnoc.org or call (504) 598-7146. Williams Residence Tour “HOW SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IS TRANSFORMING THE GLOBAL Architecture and Courtyard Tour TRAVEL INDUSTRY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR NEW ORLEANS” 533 Royal Street Tuesday–Saturday, 10 and 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. Tourism expert and National Geographic Traveler columnist Costas Christ will discuss Sunday, 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. environmental responsibility, cultural heritage, and social justice within New Orleans tourism $5 admission; free for THNOC members practices. Christ’s talk will serve as the Jacob Haight and Mary Meek Morrison Memorial Lecture, a biannual program on historic preservation in New Orleans presented in collaboration with the Groups of five or more should call (504) 598-7145 Vieux Carré Commission Foundation and Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents, and Associates. to make reservations. Saturday, June 30, 2–3:30 p.m. Educational tours for school groups are Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street available free of charge; please contact Jenny Free; reservations required. To register, visit www.hnoc.org or call (504) 598-7146. Schwartzberg, curator of education, at (504) 556-7661 or [email protected]. Access THNOC’s new ticketing system! UPCOMING Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina . Visit www.hnoc.org. Click on “My HNOC ” Click the “Login” button. presented by The Helis Foundation If you have previously shared an email Opening fall 2018 address with us, then an account has already been set up for you. Click “Reset Password” and follow the instructions to GENERAL HOURS access your account. If you have not previously shared an 533 Royal Street Williams Gallery, Louisiana History email address, click the “Register” button, Galleries, Shop, and Tours and you will be led through the process of Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. creating an account. Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Once your account is set up you can register for events, purchase or renew a 400 and 410 Chartres Street membership, or change your address on file. Williams Research Center, Boyd Cruise You may also continue to register for events Gallery, and Laura Simon Nelson by calling (504) 598-7146. No reservations Galleries will be taken via email, mail, or fax. Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. ON THE COVER Cityscape 1987; gouache on paper by Krista Jurisich gift of Judith L. Jurisich, 2017.0021 CONTENTS FROM THE PRESIDENT ON VIEW / 2 A tricentennial tableau comes to THNOC in Vacation season is upon us, and New Orleanians are busy planning their escapes from a brand-new artwork. the heat, but here at The Collection we’ve already been to the other side of the world French Quarter museums unite in a new and back. In late April the annual THNOC study tour took a group of 31 members display. and staffers to France, in honor of the city’s founding 300 years ago. Travelers visited Off-Site Spotlight: THNOC reproductions Paris, Orléans, and surrounding areas, exploring chateaux, museums, the Opéra grace the newly renovated Gallier Hall. Comique, and plenty of renowned restaurants along the way. If you want to take your Off-Site love of history on the road with us, visit www.hnoc.org/programs/study-tours to learn about our study tours. PROGRAMS / 9 The Collection hosted another tour much closer to home in April, one we’ll revive THNOC joins an archival collective in the fall—the Portage Bike Roll 2018, which was developed as a tricentennial dedicated to LGBT+ history. event in conjunction with our yearlong programming for Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina, presented by The Helis Foundation. Following the original portage COMMUNITY / 10 route connecting the Mississippi River to Bayou St. John—and, by extension, to Lake On the Job Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico—the bike tours were a great opportunity for Staff News us to get out of our French Quarter home base and onto the streets. Visitors can still Focus on Philanthropy take the tour on their own, using the portage-route map available for free at 533 Royal Street, as part of our Art of the City preview show. Donors As our event calendar shows, there’s never a shortage of things to do here at The On the Scene Collection, and I’m excited to announce that it’s now easier than ever to register for our lectures, film screenings, concerts, and other special events. Our website’s new ACQUISITIONS / 17 “My HNOC” feature will allow you to book tours, make reservations for events, or Acquisition Spotlight: Bernstein’s Candide renew your membership online, anytime. See the instuctions on the opposite page to comes to The Collection. access your account today. —PRISCILLA LAWRENCE Recent Additions ON VIEW Panoramic Parade A preview exhibition for THNOC’s upcoming contemporary art show features an epic panorama and bike tours. EXHIBITION The city of New Orleans hovers in the air, its skyline rendered in black and white with an Preview of Art of the City: Postmodern iceberg-like underbelly. Beneath, dramas in miniature spread across the canvas in a parade to Post-Katrina presented by The Helis of color and action—New Orleans ladies spitting on General Benjamin Butler, Drew Brees Foundation clutching the Super Bowl XLIV trophy, the young city burning in the great fire of 1794, On view through fall 2018 and dozens more. 533 Royal Street The present-day city of New Orleans and its 300-year history come together in New Free Orleans: Between Heaven and Hell, an ink-and-watercolor panorama by UK artist Robin Reynolds. Created on the occasion of the city’s tricentennial, the artwork anchors THNOC’s preview exhibition, now on view, for Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina, presented by The Helis Foundation. When it opens this fall at THNOC’s new museum facility at 520 Royal Street, Art of the City will celebrate contemporary art in New Orleans from the time of the 1984 world’s fair to the present. Until then, visitors can get a taste of what’s to come in the preview show. With its imaginative mingling of past and present, New Orleans: Between Heaven and Hell serves as a fitting calling card for both the postmodernist strain ofArt of the City as New Orleans: Between Heaven well as the historical nitty-gritty that The Collection preserves and makes available to and Hell (detail) the public. The small scenes tucked within the panorama stem from extensive research 2018; ink and watercolor conducted in the Williams Research Center by Reynolds and New Orleans–based visual by Robin Reynolds courtesy of the artist 2 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly historian Sarah Borealis, with help from THNOC Reference Associate Robert Ticknor. New Orleans: Between Heaven and Hell is modeled after Reynolds’s Visscher Redrawn: 1616–2016, an intricate re-creation of Claes Visscher’s 1616 engraving of the London cityscape, updated with hidden Shakespearean references. Reynolds’s detailed rendering of New Orleans pres- ents both a thoughtful exploration of the city’s history as well as a challenge for New Orleans lovers to recognize the many historical references packed into the frame.