New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy
Contemporary Pastel Portraits of 18th & 19th Century Creoles of Color
an Ogden Museum Solo Art Exhibition
José Torres-Tama
Contemporary Pastel Portraits of 18th & 19th Century Creoles of Color
an Ogden Museum Solo Art Exhibition
José Torres-Tama
Les gens de couleur libres are considered the first multiracial people in the United States, borne of an illegal but tolerated mixing between the African, French, Spanish, and Native races of colonial New Orleans. They were a hybrid third race between the French and Spanish Colonial slave masters and their slaves. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, their numbers had grown greatly.
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I am a Mestizo, a hybrid of Spanish Colonial descent mixed with Andean Quichua Natives of Ecuador. On my mother’s side, the Tama name is connected to our German heritage. Thus, I am a multiracial citizen of the Hemispheric Americas. From 1987 to 2006, I lived in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, which was founded by the hybrid caste of free people of color, but whose legacy has been gentrified into non-existence and simply forgotten. This project is dedicated to remembering these heroic people whose contributions merit great celebration, especially in the post-Katrina reconstruction era of a city in danger of having its African roots diminished.
--José Torres Tama
This visual history project celebrates the legacy of New Orleans Free People of Color, and honors their cultural, political, and artistic contributions. The artist began developing the series in 2002 through the Ogden Museum’s Artist and Sense of Place residency program, and it evolved as an educational project. As part of this program, he taught portraiture drawing and the history of this rather forgotten hybrid caste of "free people" that inhabited New Orleans during the brutal Slave era.
The exhibition titled New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy opened at the Ogden Museum in January 2008, and the series was the culmination of the artist’s six-year research on this subject. He developed colorful and expressionistic pastel portraits of prominent 18th and 19th century Creoles of color, who fought to dismantle the institutional prejudices of their times.
His contemporary interpretation of Marie Laveau, the renowned voodoo priestess and most iconic free woman of color, graces the cover of the book that was developed and published by the Ogden Museum in October of 2009. Funded by the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York, Creole historian Keith Weldon Medley wrote the biographical notes on each individual portrayed for the exhibition and the book, and he developed a time line of New Orleans French and Spanish colonial history. The book documents the Ogden exhibit of the same title.
This show was made possible through the Ogden Museum’s traveling exhibits program, and the show traveled to the Dillard University Fine Arts Gallery in November of 2008. In the fall of 2010, the Alexandria Museum of Art presented the series. In the summer of 2014, Le Musée du f.p.c. on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans remounted the exhibition to much critical acclaim, and an opening crowd of some two hundred people. This historic house museum was founded by Beverly McKenna, publisher of the Tribune Newspaper, and two of the pastel portraits from this series are in her collection and on permanent display at Le Musée. They are the portraits of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez and Rodolphe Desdunes.
The 2014 Le Musée exhibition was funded by the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York and through a community arts initiative developed by Gia Hamilton, current Executive Director of the Joan Mitchell Center (JMC) in New Orleans. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the JMC, the Ogden Museum, and Le Musée. It was prepared by Bradley Sumrall, the Ogden's Chief Visual Arts Curator.
The series features portraits of some of the most prominent Creoles of color such as Marie Laveau, the voodoo priestess and most iconic and renowned free woman of color; Henriette Delille, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family who is in the process of canonization by the Vatican; Rose Nicaud, an amazing woman who bought herself out of bondage with earnings from a coffee stand set up on the river where Café Du Monde stands now; Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, the outspoken editor of The Crusader newspaper; Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, a doctor, activist, and publisher of L’Union and The New Orleans Tribune newspapers; and the one and only Marie Couvent, who was brought to New Orleans as a slave child at the age of seven from New Guinea.
The pious Catholic Marie Couvent eventually married Bernard Couvent, a freeman of color, and became one of the free women of color to own many properties here. In her will, Ms. Couvent bequeathed her properties at the corner of Dauphine and Touro Streets to establish a free Catholic School for the “colored orphans” of the Faubourg Marigny, and the school opened in 1848.
Two portraits from the series are in the Ogden's permanent collection, and others are in private collections including that of John Cummings, and Michael Brown and Linda Green. Portraits of Marie Laveau and Rose Nicaud are available through archival prints the artist had made, and can be purchased through the links below. These are archival prints on paper and canvas. They are available as a signed and limited edition.
I am a Mestizo, a hybrid of Spanish Colonial descent mixed with Andean Quichua Natives of Ecuador. On my mother’s side, the Tama name is connected to our German heritage. Thus, I am a multiracial citizen of the Hemispheric Americas. From 1987 to 2006, I lived in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, which was founded by the hybrid caste of free people of color, but whose legacy has been gentrified into non-existence and simply forgotten. This project is dedicated to remembering these heroic people whose contributions merit great celebration, especially in the post-Katrina reconstruction era of a city in danger of having its African roots diminished.
--José Torres Tama
This visual history project celebrates the legacy of New Orleans Free People of Color, and honors their cultural, political, and artistic contributions. The artist began developing the series in 2002 through the Ogden Museum’s Artist and Sense of Place residency program, and it evolved as an educational project. As part of this program, he taught portraiture drawing and the history of this rather forgotten hybrid caste of "free people" that inhabited New Orleans during the brutal Slave era.
The exhibition titled New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy opened at the Ogden Museum in January 2008, and the series was the culmination of the artist’s six-year research on this subject. He developed colorful and expressionistic pastel portraits of prominent 18th and 19th century Creoles of color, who fought to dismantle the institutional prejudices of their times.
His contemporary interpretation of Marie Laveau, the renowned voodoo priestess and most iconic free woman of color, graces the cover of the book that was developed and published by the Ogden Museum in October of 2009. Funded by the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York, Creole historian Keith Weldon Medley wrote the biographical notes on each individual portrayed for the exhibition and the book, and he developed a time line of New Orleans French and Spanish colonial history. The book documents the Ogden exhibit of the same title.
This show was made possible through the Ogden Museum’s traveling exhibits program, and the show traveled to the Dillard University Fine Arts Gallery in November of 2008. In the fall of 2010, the Alexandria Museum of Art presented the series. In the summer of 2014, Le Musée du f.p.c. on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans remounted the exhibition to much critical acclaim, and an opening crowd of some two hundred people. This historic house museum was founded by Beverly McKenna, publisher of the Tribune Newspaper, and two of the pastel portraits from this series are in her collection and on permanent display at Le Musée. They are the portraits of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez and Rodolphe Desdunes.
The 2014 Le Musée exhibition was funded by the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York and through a community arts initiative developed by Gia Hamilton, current Executive Director of the Joan Mitchell Center (JMC) in New Orleans. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the JMC, the Ogden Museum, and Le Musée. It was prepared by Bradley Sumrall, the Ogden's Chief Visual Arts Curator.
The series features portraits of some of the most prominent Creoles of color such as Marie Laveau, the voodoo priestess and most iconic and renowned free woman of color; Henriette Delille, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family who is in the process of canonization by the Vatican; Rose Nicaud, an amazing woman who bought herself out of bondage with earnings from a coffee stand set up on the river where Café Du Monde stands now; Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, the outspoken editor of The Crusader newspaper; Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, a doctor, activist, and publisher of L’Union and The New Orleans Tribune newspapers; and the one and only Marie Couvent, who was brought to New Orleans as a slave child at the age of seven from New Guinea.
The pious Catholic Marie Couvent eventually married Bernard Couvent, a freeman of color, and became one of the free women of color to own many properties here. In her will, Ms. Couvent bequeathed her properties at the corner of Dauphine and Touro Streets to establish a free Catholic School for the “colored orphans” of the Faubourg Marigny, and the school opened in 1848.
Two portraits from the series are in the Ogden's permanent collection, and others are in private collections including that of John Cummings, and Michael Brown and Linda Green. Portraits of Marie Laveau and Rose Nicaud are available through archival prints the artist had made, and can be purchased through the links below. These are archival prints on paper and canvas. They are available as a signed and limited edition.
