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The Orleans Gallery: 65 Years Later
Robert Helmer, Shearly Grode, George Dunbar, Lin Emery, Jack Hastings, Jean Seidenberg, and James Lamantia
2022

Click here for exhibition catalogue I designed



exhibition catalogue





I discovered my passion for archives in New Orleans. I took a job working for Amanda Winstead, an art appraiser and dealer located in Uptown. My job mostly involved market data research and artwork comps for appraisals, but occasionally I did deep dives into a specific artist or, in this case, a gallery. Amanda had the idea to curate a show centered on the Orleans Gallery during COVID and hired me to provide that historical research. I expanded on oral histories from surviving artists and family members, research from various New Orleans special collections, and my own archival work with the Jim Steg estate. 1

The Orleans Gallery opened in April 1956 at 527 Royal Street in the French Quarter and became the center of New Orleans' contemporary art world until it closed in early 1973. Founded by seven artists including Robert Helmer, Shearly Goode, George Dunbar, Lin Emery, Jack Hastings, Jean Seidenberg, and James Lamantia, the gallery was run as an artist cooperative, a cutting-edge concept at the time. These artists sought a forum to openly share ideas and exhibit art rooted mainly in abstraction and the New York School, which New Orleans did not readily accept.

Shearley Goode, Painter
George Dunbar, Painter
Ida Kohlmeyer, Painter
Marilyn Conrad, Painter
Jean Seidenberg, Sculptor and Painter
Jim Steg, Printmaker
Robert Helme, Painter
Lin Emery, Sculptor
James Lamantia, Painter

In the truest sense of cooperation, the artists of the Orleans Gallery supported and encouraged each other. It is interesting to see how several artists, such as Helmer, Goode, and Conrad, used certain media, specifically silver and gold leaf. Several artists from the Orleans Gallery went on to become well known in bigger circles and across the South.


I imagine that our individual styles would not differ much if we had never met, but I’m sure that we all found our identities faster by being together. 
- Lin Emery 2 

In 1958, they showed over eighty works by twelve artists from the Orleans Gallery at the Riverside Museum in New York City at an exhibition entitled, “NOW in New Orleans.” The exhibition received widespread critical praise and positive reviews, reinforcing the founding members' artistic ideals. By 1960, the Orleans Gallery was established and successful in New Orleans, allowing a true contemporary art scene to thrive in the city and laying the foundation for today's robust gallery and art scene.


install shot


After almost two decades, the Orleans Gallery closed in 1973, citing rising rent, inner gallery turmoil, and competition from commercial galleries where artists began showing. The legacy of 527 Royal Street and the Orleans Gallery lives on in the quarter's art scene, which now houses the Historic New Orleans Collection.3

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Cover image from catalogue:
Jim Steg
The Cast, 1968
Flocked serigraph
Edition 1/6
22 1/2 x 31 inches

Platou, Dode, et. al. Orleans Gallery:
The Founders. The Historic New
Orleans Collection: New Orleans, 1982.

Artist portraits taken from the first Orleans Gallery publication introducing the new gallery digitized by the Historic New Orleans Collection.